


The Descent

by Alsike



Series: Descent 'verse [1]
Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: (Very minor twincest, (not that there hasn't been Dom/sub all this time, Accidental Plot, Alex is 21, Alien Invasion, Alien/Human Relationships, Desk Sex, Dom/sub, Double Penetration, Extremely Dubious Consent, F/F, Face-Sitting, Families of Choice, Fight Sex, Fingerfucking, Hurt/Comfort, I'm gonna have to say the 'minor twincest' is not really applicable anymore, Jeremiah Danvers (deceased), Kinda, Kryptonians invaded Earth, Loss of Virginity, Oral Sex, Polyamory, Prisoner of War, Spanking, Still weirdly dubcon, Threesome - F/F/F, Twincest, Zor-El (deceased), but in new ways, ish, little bit of ass play, really this is just the In Ze twins tag-teaming Alex), things got a little intimate, this is au, why did I not tag it?)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-18
Updated: 2016-12-30
Packaged: 2018-09-09 13:53:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 32,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8893177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alsike/pseuds/Alsike
Summary: When the Kryptonians discovered that their planet was going to explode, the science council made the decision to evacuate, sending refugee ships to earth. But when negotiations for asylum went bad, it became war.But the war has ended. Alex Danvers has lost everything except her life. But when she is taken from prison by General Astra of the Kryptonian Army, she does not expect any of what happens next.





	1. Invasion

**Author's Note:**

> Sometimes someone suggests I write smut, such as, perhaps, smut where Alex is the pet of the In Ze twins. And I think, well, this would be nice, but I can't actually conceptualize this at all. But if one keeps pushing, and discussing it with me and offering up ideas and headcanons, these struggles melt away, and instead of saying, oh, that idea is just weird and dirty and wrong, I say, do you know what that idea needs? Thirty five pages of worldbuilding!
> 
> Welcome to the invasion of Earth.
> 
> ("..." -- English  
> «...» -- Kryptonian)

Alex crumpled into the corner, wrapping her arms around her knees, and pressed her head into the cold concrete. Images flashed before her eyes, screaming, dying, her father charging ahead with the new plague-weapon he'd developed, weaponizing his peacetime research on alien bio-technology, trying to stop the Kryptonian onslaught. And then the crack and the splat. Her dad was gone, and Alex was soaked in something hot and viscous.

She'd killed one, stabbed a green knife through his suit into his chest, felt his shock, his stiffening, his death under her hands. But it was too little too late. Others grabbed her. A cruel smile on a face that hovered before her. The harsh tones of Kryptonian. «I'm impressed. Not all humans are mice.»

Then nothing but this cold concrete cell.

«What are you doing here!»

Alex wished her father had never taught her Kryptonian. All of this would be simply noise that she could sleep through then.

«What are _you_ doing?» A familiar voice, cold and angry. "This is an illegal prison."

«They are prisoners of war. I can do what I please with them. Do not come here if you cannot afford to make a purchase.»

«The house of In Ze can purchase your whole establishment. But I will allow my sister to take you down according to the laws of Krypton.»

Alex heard the click of boots coming down the hallway. They paused at each cell. Alex lowered her feet, pushing herself, despite her injuries, to sit up straight, fix her gaze on the woman whose face was all she associated with the memory of her dad's death.

Those eyes, just the same, hard and cold and uncannily pale passed over her and then swiveled back. «You.»

Alex didn't move, didn't blink.

The woman smiled. «This one, I claim for the House of In Ze.»

«What right have you to claim it?»

«She killed my husband.»

«You hated your husband.»

«Nevertheless.»

«Fine. The human's yours. Take it.»

The bars swung back and the woman strode in, not in a sleek fighting suit this time, but robes. Alex struck at her, but she evaded it easily, and Alex over extended, jarring the wound in her side. She gasped, and fell, but before she landed the woman caught her and scooped her up. «Did you not even give these prisoners medical attention?» She cursed at the other Kryptonian.

«I did if they asked. That one didn't say nothing!»

A scoff, and Alex was being carried away, down the hall, in arms so strong she could not think of escape.

So she didn't. She lay her head against her new jailer's shoulder and slept.

#

Astra kicked open the door to the In Ze mansion and listened for any sign that her sister had emerged from her room. She could hear the thump of her heartbeat, still in the same place as always. She shook her head, hosting the half-dead girl up higher on her shoulder, and glanced about for a place to put her. It was her brother-in-law's own hubris that made him stay on Krypton when they all knew it was going to explode. He thought he could hold it off, fix it. He hadn't.

«Who is this?» Kara, her delightful niece, raced up, staring at the occupant of Astra's arms. Astra spotted a likely couch, one that wouldn't stain too badly, and stomped over there, laying the human down.

«This is the young woman who killed your uncle Non.»

«Oh,» Kara said, eyes wide. She lifted her hand, and then stopped herself. At ten she was far too old to suck her thumb, though she still was inclined to. Alura was far too gentle a parent. «Why is she here?»

«If you kill a member of a clan, you owe this clan a life debt. She is ours now. Her service, her life, and her body belong to us.»

«Mama says that's barbaric.»

Astra grinned. «It's still the law.»

Kara wandered over to the girl's head. She pushed her shorn hair out of her face. «She's pretty.»

Astra appraised the half-dead pallor and bruises speckled over her jaw. «We'll see. Perhaps we'll get some use out of the body part of the equation. But before then, we'd better make sure she doesn't die.»

Astra stripped off the filthy shirt and tore the flimsy trousers. An ugly pus-filled gash gaped in the girl's side. Kara gave a little gasp.

«What do you think we should do?» Astra asked her. How far had her fool of a father gotten in her education?

«Clean it,» Kara said, her eyes still wide, her hand over her mouth. «And, maybe the regeneration machine?»

«Won't work on humans. But that would come in handy for certain.»

Astra contemplated the girl's tattered body. She'd better heal quickly. It would be a shame if she died after all this trouble.

#

«You need to get out more.»

Alura raised her head slowly from her book. «Out? Onto this barbarian world? No thank you.»

She was tired of her sister's interference. Perhaps it meant that she cared, but caring had caused this trouble in the first place. And what need was there of a judge in a world won by conquest?

«I taught your daughter what a pustule was the other day. You should take more of an interest, or I'll corrupt her thoroughly.»

Alura shook her head. «I trust you. I know you love Kara.»

Astra snorted. «That's why I'll corrupt her. I'm not an excellent influence on children. But, perhaps our new pet will be.»

«Our _what_?»

Astra grinned. Obviously she'd only mentioned it to catch Alura's attention. «We have a human. She's a little weak, still healing up. But rather lovely, and angry. Perhaps you can let her comfort you through your grief.»

«A human?»

«She killed Non. I suppose I owe her a debt.»

«So you've taken her as a slave?» Alura felt the familiar heat rise up, the frustration and annoyance with her carelessly cruel sister.

«Better a slave in our house than free out there.» Astra strode closer to her desk. «But you'd know that, if you could break out of your grief and just look at what's happening. You were a leader on Krypton. We need leaders now.»

«Krypton is dead,» Alura said, the pain in her chest opening up like a cavern. «What care I for Earth?»

«You only care for yourself.»

#

Alex blinked sticky eyes open and met blue ones, wide innocent eyes in a child's face framed by tousled blonde hair.

«Hi,» the girl mouthed.

Kryptonian. Alex pinched her mouth and turned away.

«Do you need water? Or medicines? I'm Kara.»

Alex's throat was dry and grating, and her whole body ached. Carefully she shuffled back to look at Kara. She nodded. Kara nodded furiously back, and then zipped off, flying to fetch water and medicines.

«Aunt Astra said you could have two of these if you woke up. And here is water. I like water so much! Aunt Astra and Mama won't drink it, because at home you couldn't. But it is over sixty percent of this world! Water is great!»

Alex groaned, her head throbbing at the excitable child speech. She took the pills and dry swallowed them, then followed it up with the whole glass of water. This was already better than the cell, but god, she hurt so much.

«Go back to sleep now,» Kara said, tugging a blanket Alex hadn't noticed up around her shoulders. «The big hole in you is not so infected, but it is not healed yet.»

She petted Alex's hair, which was disturbing--would she press too hard? would she snap Alex's neck?--until the rhythm became steady, and Alex found herself yawning, and dozing off again.

#

_You should have done more. You should have fought harder. If you weren't so scared you would have been at his side--you would be dead, probably. But better dead than this, then having to live after you've lost your entire world._

Alex jarred awake. She lurched forward, and her stomach screamed in pain. But not as much as it had before. She could move without feeling like she was going to pass out.

«You're awake.»

Alex looked over to see the woman who had come for her in tight black tank top and rugged combat trousers moving in a smooth set pattern--some kind of kata or tai chi, but the forms were not any Alex knew. Her hair was swept up and back and a light sheen of sweat glinted off her skin in the dim light from a solitary lamp on an empty bookshelf.

Alex grimaced, realizing that this was some random McMansion that had once belonged to real people, and the aliens had taken it over. She turned her glare back to the woman who had moved into a weird twisted position, like yoga gone wrong. "Who are you?" she snapped, using English. "What do you want with me?"

The woman straightened and picked up a towel, wiping her forehead with it. Her eyes lingered on Alex as her mouth stayed shut. Had she understood anything? Then she spoke, the words accented, but not Kryptonian. "I am General Astra In Ze."

"General? You lead the invasion?"

"Invasion? Such a harsh term. We were but refugees, fleeing our dying planet." She smiled. "Well, until the people of Earth decided to repel our ships. Strangely, after feeling the touch of your yellow sun, my soldiers were eager for battle. It was a decisive victory."

"I know. I was there."

"And that is what I want with you. You murdered my husband, so I have decided to take care of you."

A chill rolled through Alex's stomach. "Take care of me? What do you mean by that?" It was a gangster version of 'off', but she'd been given medical attention, a blanket. What did these aliens want with her?

"You are spoils of war, brave one. To kill one of my clan puts you under life's penalty. You belong to the In Ze now. So we will take care of you, and you will do what we wish you to."

"Like _hell_ I will."

The woman grinned. "And we will do what we wish to you also."

"Fuck you!"

"That's definitely on the table." The woman, Astra, paced over to the couch like a jungle cat. She stroked Alex's cheek with one long finger. "We'll wait 'til you're better, though. We don't want you to pull something."

Alex couldn't draw breath, couldn't do anything but fight the ball of rage in her chest. "I will kill you," she growled out. "You were the fool who brought me into your house. And I will kill you, just like I killed your husband. I will kill you and all your family. Even that little girl. Even--"

Alex's voice cracked. Astra held her face between both hands. She pressed just a little too hard and Alex could feel the bones in her face creak with the strain. "Say that again. Say that you are going to kill my niece."

Alex could not.

"Good," Astra whispered softly. "Because if you ever even lay a hand on her--not that she couldn't break you in half without even trying--you will know what true suffering is."

Barely able to breathe, unable to move her head, Alex tried to convey her understanding with her eyes. Astra's grip lightened just a touch.

"I know it is hard to see right now, but this is a kindness. We will take care of you, and all you must be in return is obedient."

"I-- I killed your husband."

Astra released her face, and she smiled. "Yes. I'm grateful."

The light clicked off and Alex was left in darkness. Inside she shook. Surrounded by Kryptonians. They could break her without a thought. They had reason to. But she wasn't dead. They were looking after her. Until she was better. And then what? What 'obedience' did they have in store?

A kindness, General Astra had said. What kind of kindness? Kryptonians didn't know the meaning of the word.

#


	2. Captivity

«Hide and seek!» Kara yelped, bouncing without her feet ever hitting the ground. «But no cheating. X-ray vision is cheating.»

Astra patted her niece's cheeks and shook her head. «You have x-ray vision too.»

«I don't! It hasn't come in yet. So it's cheating.» Kara was smiling in a way that even Alex could tell was duplicitous. She totally had x-ray vision already. She just wanted to win a few games.

It was hard to hate Kara. Even with the flying and other Kryptonian creepiness, she was still just a kid. Astra was a different story.

«You play too!» Kara pulled Alex off her couch. «You're better enough, right?»

«I guess,» Alex muttered, and Astra gave her a sharp look. Alex went silent. She only spoke Kryptonian to Kara. Astra didn't deserve that respect.

"Yes," Astra said slowly. "You are better enough, aren't you?"

«You're it!» Kara yelped, pointing at her aunt, and then flew off up through the bannisters to the upstairs.

Astra's hands closed around Alex's upper arms. The new clothing she wore was mismatched and poorly fitting, and Astra tugged up the hem of the shirt to reveal her wound. It was still raised and red with glossy hot skin in the middle, but nearly healed. Astra traced her cool fingers around it, and Alex grit her teeth, swallowing hard to control her reactions. Punching a Kryptonian would get her nothing but a broken hand. «Go hide,» Astra murmured in English. "You'll regret it if I find you first."

Alex limped away, still burning with anger. Hide and seek with Kryptonians. More like catch and release of a cat with a mouse. Her fists balled, she padded to a white door that looked like it led to a closet. Instead it was carpeted steps down to a finished basement. Alex fumbled for the switch and peered down.

On the hardwood floor and reflected in the mirrored walls with barres across them was a laboratory. It looked brand new and untouched, full of strange tubes and wires. Everything was just a little wrong, like the alien equipment her dad had had. A Kryptonian lab, built in some human kids' home dance studio.

So much glass. She wanted to smash it. But that wouldn't help her hide. She shut the door again and found the back stairs up to the second story.

With her injury, Alex had only been able to scope out the ground floor. An open design living room, dining room, parlor, entry hall, with the front stair swooping up in a curve, a partly closed off kitchen, also vast and perfect, like out of a catalogue. But the smells that came out of it were roasting meat and charring tubers. Astra had rigged a spit over the burners and the drippings coated the white surface brown and black.

Alex suspected that was more because she'd have no idea what to do in any kitchen, of human _or_ Kryptonian design, than because she was confused by the appliances. She seemed military all the way through, and not the sort that missed sit down meals.

The back stairs were steep and Alex limped up them, her side pulling with each step. She was sweaty and shaky by the time she reached the top. She leaned against the wall, her eyes shut, trying to breathe without screaming in pain.

«Ready or not! Here I come!»

Shit. Alex stumbled forward two steps, grabbed a knob, and dropped onto her knees onto the carpet in a dim room. She shut the door quietly behind her, and dragged breath in through nose. Then she looked up.

Astra was looking at her.

Alex froze.

The woman sat on the bed, long legs crossed, a hefty tome open on her knees. She wore a loose robe over what looked like linen pants, hair half caught up in a fancy spiraling clip, and half tumbling down the side of her face. Heavy curtains blocked out all sunlight, keeping the room in shadow.

She looked exactly like Astra and nothing like Astra at all.

«Oh, you must be the human.»

Alex swallowed. «Who are you?» The words came out in Kryptonian.

The woman frowned, brow furrowing. «You speak our tongue?»

Alex gave a stiff nod.

«How?»

«My father,» she said, even more stiffly. «He studied your biology and your technology. He learned your language to read your texts. He taught me, so I could help him in his lab when I was home from college.»

«A scientist?»

Alex tightened her fists. She nodded.

The woman seemed to sink. «I assume he is dead.»

«Yes.»

«My husband was a scientist also. He is also dead. I always find it harder, when someone who thinks great thoughts and creates great things dies. It is sad when there is an emptiness in the world where a person once was, but it seems worse when there is an emptiness of possibility where there should have been creation.»

Alex breathed out. Her face felt hot. «I can't sympathize with you.»

The woman closed her eyes. «I know.»

Thumping and yelping from outside. Alex glanced over her shoulder. It sounded like Kara had been caught. A reflexive smile crossed her mouth.

When she glanced back, the woman was watching her, with something like curiosity on her face. «What brings you here?»

«Hide and seek.»

The woman smiled, everything about her seeming soft, quietly vulnerable. «I thank you for your kindness to my daughter.»

«I'm not--»

«For being a person in her life when I am not.»

Alex watched her face, the clouds that hovered behind the calm expression. «What are you called?»

«Alura. I am Astra's twin.»

«No title?»

«None that I deserve anymore.»

«I'm Alex.»

«I am honored to meet you.»

Alex didn't know what to do with this sad beautiful woman-- _alien_.

«Perhaps you should go. I think that Astra will not look in here for you.»

Alex sank. In here, for just a moment, she'd felt like she could breathe, even through the ache in her chest that never let up. But she shouldn't feel like that. She should still want to fight, want to destroy this woman who had invaded her world. But facing Astra again, all hard edges and a matching fierce burning rage--

«You may come here any time you wish,» Alura said.

And with that, Alex found the strength to open the door. But as she moved to step outside, Alura spoke again.

«When I decided that my people should come here, I did not intend that we commit such atrocities upon you.»

A chill like ice swarmed across her skin. Alex stared into the woman's pale eyes. _I decided. I decided. I decided._

The door thunked shut behind her. "There you are!" Astra landed in front of her, giving a sharp glance from her to the door. Then she frowned. "You look like shit. Let me check your wound again."

She scooped up Alex and flew her down the stairs to her sofa. Alex reached out and took hold of a handful of her hair, just like the other woman's. It was soft under her hand. And it strange, to know that this woman, who she hated and fought and bashed herself against, was as nothing compared to her mirror image upstairs.

_I decided that my people should come here._

Silently, Alex started to cry.

#

"Get up."

Alex glowered into the dim morning at the alien in exercise clothes currently making her life unpleasant."What do you want?"

Astra clapped her hands. "Up."

"Why?"

Astra leaned forward and pushed up her chin. "You don't get to ask that. Do as I say."

Alex shoved the blanket down and dragged herself to her feet. Astra gestured for her to follow her to the open space in the middle of the living area. There had been a TV set there, but it had been dumped out in the yard, deemed useless by the aliens.

"Do what I do."

Astra began those strange movements that Alex had seen her doing when she woke up in the middle of the night.

"I'm injured."

"Exactly," Astra said flatly. "If you don't train, you won't heal properly."

Sullenly, Alex raised her arms into the first position. It tugged at her wound, but didn't transform into blinding pain. "Why do you care? You should have let me die of blood poisoning."

"But then you wouldn't be so miserable." Astra smirked. "No. I wouldn't let you die."

#

_The powers had developed slowly. "We come in peace, here is an offering of our goodwill."_

_"There are too many of you. America does not have room for refugees. Go home."_

_"Our planet is dying. We have knowledge, technology to share, we see your planet is infected with atmospheric poisons, we have ways of purging--"_

_"Try Europe."_

_The meetings went poorly, and back in camp Astra's soldiers were beginning to find their strength was great, their sight penetrating, their hearing screamingly oversensitive. And then the first heat-vision burst tore a hole through six tents and a tree._

« _We are powerful enough to take them,_ » _Non had said._

« _That isn't our goal here. We want a home, not a war.»_

_Non had retreated, seeming to accept her decision._

_"The answer is still no," said General Lane, and then his gun was a melted puddle of metal and plastic on the floor._

_"That was a warning shot," Non said. He began to rise up, take to the air. "We are more powerful than you can imagine. Have us as your allies or as your enemies."_

_Others rose with him. Astra would have killed him where he stood, the mutineer. But then what? General Lane pissed his pants. He made noises of acceptance, bargaining._

_And then the humans ambushed Astra's camp and were massacred._

_It was war. If Astra wanted to retain power, she had no choice but to claim that she had ordered Non to threaten General Lane, that destroying the human resistance would be easy._

_It hadn't been easy. Even with their superior powers, only Astra's ground team had developed them fully. They invented ways of exposing each troop to enough sunlight to be able to be a support force, then moved them to attack when they were bulletproof. The humans developed their own weapons. When the fragments of the explosion of Krypton finally reached Earth they discovered the best weapon. Kryptonite._

_But they did not discover how to use it properly quickly enough. There was only one weapon that could have destroyed them. Astra had lead the force to destroy the plague-weapon personally. And that was where a girl with a Kryptonite knife had done what Astra had wished to do ever since Non in his insubordination had lead them into this war. She had been an animal, crazed, uncontrolled. Non had laughed, reached in to snap her neck--his favorite kill--and she had lunged past his grasp and stuck the knife through his chest._

_So many dead. So many more dead because of Non's choice. Her friends, her colleagues, her companions. Astra had accepted responsibility for it. But seeing the shock in his eyes as the young rampaging human stuck him like a meat animal, for a moment the cold pragmatism had transformed into hot, vindictive rage and joy at his death._

_It was a death worthy of a traitor._

_#_


	3. Punishment

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Earns its rating.

Alex was getting better at the forms, moving smoothly from one to another, balanced and stable, not shaky as she had been in the first few weeks after her injury. She showed aptitude for them. Quietly, without pointing this out, Astra moved on to the second and third level forms, taking Alex's arms or waist to guide her into the motions.

Alex's breath would catch at each touch, anger on her face, but she accepted the guidance, changed her stance and increased her power. Back on Krypton she would have been a promising soldier. Here she would never be anything but weak. But still, she was beautiful to watch.

"These are strikes," Astra said. She gestured. "Do not think on where they go, but stay focused on the motions. First high, head, jaw, throat, then the twist around the knees, then the soft belly, now attack me."

"What's the point? I can't hurt you."

"You will know what the point is when your strikes are correct."

Alex scowled, as always, but there was more energy in her form, in the bounce on her toes. Astra had planned to judge the strikes, stay solid when they were weak and move when they were strong. But with the first whirl of foot and fist, Astra found her gaze transfixed, her stance unbalanced, and she took the hit and stumbled back.

Alex dropped out of the form and stared at her. Then she shook her foot. "Even if you fall over, hitting you is still like hitting a rock."

Astra shook herself and dropped into the proper position. "Again."

Alex smiled, cold and tight and went in again.

#

«You aren't eating enough.»

Alura looked up from her desk, watching her sister who was slick with sweat, her hair dark and clinging to her neck. To sweat as they were now, she would have had to commit some serious exertion. «What have you been doing? Putting a girdle around Earth in forty minutes?»

Astra stared at her, bewildered. The human reference, like Puck, sailed over her head.

Alura shook her head and waved her hand to encompass Astra's form. «You're sweating.»

Astra made a face. «I've been teaching the human to fight.»

«That couldn't be responsible.»

«It gave me energy to burn, so I flew. Caught a wild pig in the mountains.» Astra gestured with the plate. «Kara almost ate half of it herself.»

«And did young Alex eat?»

Astra's brow furrowed. «You know the human's name?»

Alura turned back to her book. «You worry too much about me.»

«Pardon me for being concerned about my shut in of a sister.» Astra reached for her, but Alura pulled back, not letting her hand connect.

Astra balled her hands into fists.

«I'm fine, Astra,» Alura said, looking into her book.

Only twins really knew how different each one was. Perhaps there was some familiarity in the mirror, but the person reflected by mirrors only slightly resembled one's image of oneself. It most looked like the sister who was always the focus of those eyes.

She knew that Astra thought that she did not forgive her for the invasion of earth, for the army's refutation of the science council's authority. But no, how could she have not forgiven her when she owed her so much now? Astra was her caretaker, Kara's parent, her guard against the outside world. But she could not allow herself to accept comfort from Astra, to touch her, not when there was so much built up between them, when she had yet to confront her own crimes. Astra could not be a refuge until Alura had cleared her own conscience. And after what she had done, her conscience would never be clear.

#

More sweat, more pain. The wound in her side didn't pull anymore, and Alex almost looked forward to being shaken awake at dawn and made to fight. 

Why, though? She sometimes wondered if Astra slept at all, or if those nights Alex burst free from nightmares to find her moving through the forms were ones where sleep had brought Astra no peace either. But training her to fight?

On mornings it went well--with adrenaline flowing free through her system--it felt like a gift. Astra's form was like iron under her blows, but she remembered the cruel smile on the face of the Kryptonian she had killed, his sneer, as he reached out to swat her like a bug. She'd surprised him, his mouth falling open, his blood wet on her hands.

Astra's smile was a reminder of that surprise. Every time she did something right, found her balance, struck a blow, she would receive that smile, a slight nod. A flush of pleasure, of power, rose through her.

She hadn't realized it was a problem until she caught herself smiling back.

This wasn't a game. She hadn't just taken up a new sport. Astra was her jailer, not her coach. And if she meant this as the 'kindness' she had promised, Alex would spit it back into her face.

She could forgive herself for not fighting at first. She'd been weak, mostly dead. She'd slept on a sofa out in the open, vulnerable, while the instruments and instigators of her species' genocide moved about upstairs. She had been too weak to have a choice. But she wasn't weak anymore. With the training, she was stronger than she'd ever been. She had killed one Kryptonian. What was two more?

Alex could feel the hilt of the knife under her hand, see how the twisting strike would bring the green stone right to the hollow of Astra's throat, penetrate it--the gush of blood, the glow sheathed in flesh, death and vengeance in her hands.

But even in her imagination, even as the knife brought her death, Astra still smiled that faintly appropriative smile, as if nothing Alex could do could ever touch her. And when her fists slammed into the iron of her flesh, Alex knew that all she was to Astra was a hamster taught to do tricks.

#

"What's that?"

Astra pinched her mouth closed against the burn and the nausea. She lifted the precious pendant of green stone from the lead lined box and turned her gaze to Alex. "I think you know."

Alex sat up, something dark and intense in her face. "Why do you have it?"

"I think you're ready to spar, and I don't want to have to hold back as much as I usually must."

Alex rose instantly, her weight settling into a fighting stance, her hands raising. She shoved her hair back, revealing the fire in her eyes. She was ready for this chance. Astra knew that need in herself, the desire to relieve her helplessness and the futility of her existence in violence.

Dragged down by the Kryptonite, Astra's reactions slowed, and in contrast Alex seemed to move like water. Astra took one hit and another, Alex's eyes alight with each blow that connected. The joy on her face was infectious and Astra rose up, refocusing on her movements and not on the loss of her powers. She countered, responded, until sweat was running down her back. Alex was equally soaked, droplets flicking from the ends of her hair. Astra could taste them.

A slip and Astra's body weight hit Alex in the hips and she thudded into the wall. Her hand closed on her throat. Alex's eyes went wide. Her cheeks flushed. Her mouth came open.

Beautiful, angry. Astra wanted this, wanted Alex to want to kill her.

"Look at you. Even when I am irradiated and powerless, you still are too weak to stop me. You could never have stopped me, never have stopped my people."

Alex bared her teeth and kicked out, struck out, not bothering with being grounded or finding a target. Astra spun her out and dropped into defense. Alex came in hard, but again beautifully, the forms becoming natural even in her rage. It was probably cheating, but level three forms were only the beginning, and with a complex turn, Astra deflected her attack, adjusting just enough so that Alex tumbled to the floor, rolling. She rose up, more tense and careful this time, favoring her shoulder.

A cold wash ran over Astra. She would be injured if she kept this up too long. But she had wanted Alex to be angry, had fueled her rage. What would make her stop?

Alex charged again, and Astra stepped in, catching her in her arms, one around her throat and one around her waist. She pressed her nose to Alex's ear and held on tightly. "Fight all you want, you won't break out."

Alex's heart pounded furiously and she struggled, but Astra's grip was sure. So close, she could smell Alex, human and living and so full of rage. And then she scented a whiff of something else. A distraction.

"Mmm." Alex's body, both hard and soft, under her arms. She brushed her mouth over her ear. "Throwing yourself at me all afternoon. What would you do if I said yes?" She let her hand slide down to squeeze the inside of Alex's thigh.

Alex jerked out of her loosened clasp and stumbled back against the wall. Her eyes were wide, her pupils dilated. She licked her lips, swallowing, bloodrage derailed by confusion.

Astra had often been curious, but she had rarely _wanted_. Now she did.

#

Alex's body ached. Bruises were coming out on her knees and shoulders. The wall, cool and hard against her back, barely held her up. She could not look away from Astra--her hair dark with sweat, the black military exercise gear, and the glowing green stone in the center of her chest. She was as close to human as she'd ever be, and still Alex could do nothing against her.

_What could you have done against her whole army?_

"Admit defeat." Astra strode toward her, reaching out, catching her face in both hands. But her grip was light, almost soft. "If it will break you to do so, just admit you desire me."

Desire her? The ache in her body intensified, as if it had been set afire. Knots tied up her stomach. Want this alien? This _monster_ \--

Astra's thumb rubbed over her lower lip, the nail catching on her flesh. A hollow sound echoed up from Alex's chest without her bidding it. One corner of Astra's mouth quirked up into a grin, the other side held a smear of blood that Alex's fist had put there.

"Say it. Or find clear words to tell me you don't. If you don't, then we're done. That's all for today."

Astra dropped her face and stepped back, reaching for the towel tossed over the back of the couch. It felt like one of Alex's organs was being ripped away along with it. "No."

Mopping sweat from her neck, Astra gave her a cool, expectant look.

The wall, her legs no longer held her up and Alex slipped to the floor, falling to her knees. She gripped the rug in both hands, her hair shielding in her eyes as she fought herself. They would be done. She just had to say no and they would be done. But saying no was saying she'd been defeated. And a defeat like this? They had played at being equals, pretended that maybe next time Alex wouldn't have her ass handed to her, maybe next time it wouldn't be fake, no glowing stone, no educational mistakes. It was a fair fight, and still Alex could never win. But accepting the loss, taking it, like they were sparring buddies, giving up before she'd done everything she could do, before her body was wrecked and broken. It would eat her. If she could not kill, she wanted to die here. Needed to. Or again there would be no punishment besides her own self-hatred.

Would letting her conqueror fuck her be punishment enough?

Alex lifted her head. "I surrender."

The rough fabric of Astra's combat pants brushed across her cheek as Astra stood over her. "And what do I gain from your surrender?"

"Me."

"Very pleasing indeed." Astra dropped to one knee and slid her hand into Alex's hair, just behind her ear. Alex forced herself to not flinch away from the touch. She deserved this. "I will take care of you."

"I know," Alex mumbled. That was the worst of it. And she had smiled, and almost felt trust for this woman. She had betrayed so much of herself. "You already have."

Astra moved behind her and turned her toward the mirror that hung from the wall. "Watch us. I want to see your face."

Her fingers flicked open the fastenings of Alex's pants. Alex's gut clenched, waiting for the violation, for the pain to begin. Her hand disappeared down the front and roughly cupped her mound. Alex gasped. Here it was, what she had asked for. Sick, her stomach churned, and worse, between her legs grew hot and liquid.

Astra slotted the side of her hand into her mouth. The width of her knuckle made Alex's jaw strain. "Bite down as hard as you need to. You can't hurt me."

No, even with the lump of kryptonite pressed hard against her back, she never could.

The tight grip of fingers on her mound released, and then knuckles stretched out the front of her pants. In the mirror they moved strangely. One finger teased apart her folds and slid inside. Easily. Too easily. Anger burned through Alex again, anger at herself. Alex bit down on the hand, feeling it flex, the matching pulse in the finger that penetrated her, and a moan opened in her chest, leaking out the corners of her mouth. Astra smiled in the mirror, her eyes fixed. Alex stared at herself, eyes tearing up, locked in these arms, helpless, obedient. She could read the arousal on her face, wet, reddened lips, wide eyes. _Whore_. She cursed at herself. Worse. _Traitor._

Slower than ages Astra drew the finger out of her then slid it back in. Alex ached, her wetness building until the penetration hardly more than a ghost inside her, torturing her. _More_. She needed to feel more. Her hips pushed into Astra's hand, and Astra pulled back farther. "No."

Alex made a sound of protest, drawing back, and then as Astra slid in again, she canted her hips to meet her.

Astra's grip changed, forearm around her throat. She jerked Alex's hips back and shoved her down. Alex landed on her face, struggling up to her hands and knees. Astra's body curved over hers, one hand still in her mouth, the other drawing out of her, pulling free from her pants.

Alex felt tears wet on her cheeks. _No. Don't stop._

Then her pants were jerked down her ass, her underwear dragged along with them, cool air on overheated skin, and Astra was fucking her again, from behind this time, still that one long finger, so deep now, so horribly, deeply slender and painless. Alex sank her teeth into the hand in her mouth and tasted iron.

The image in the mirror transfixed her. On hands and knees on the living room rug, trousers around her knees, being taken by her alien jailer. Arousal smeared fire between her legs. It should hurt more than this. It should be more of a punishment than this. Humiliation rose through her, hot as the burn in her core. Her cheeks stayed wet. She'd lost, humanity had lost, this was all she deserved.

Astra's eyes lingered on her face in the mirror, their paleness uncanny. Her finger slid deep. Alex gasped. Astra mumbled something in Kryptonian, not the hard, accented English they usually used to communicate. Alex almost didn't realize what it meant, too distant from the words, too wrapped up in her own shame and heat and desperation.

«So beautiful.»

The words parsed and Alex saw her own eyes go wide. Her? What?

Astra's whole body tensed, surprise on her face at being understood. And Alex couldn't take it anymore. The orgasm ripped through her. She convulsed around Astra's finger and hand. Come slid down her thighs, spit down her chin.

Astra pulled out like she was filthy and stumbled to her feet, her knees not quite carrying her, and Alex, unsupported, tumbled to the carpet. She glimpsed Astra tearing off the kryptonite, shoving it back into the lead box, and flexing her tooth-gouged hand. She flew out of the room like she was being hunted.

Alex curled into a ball on the floor, pants still crumpled around her thighs. _Oh God, what have I done?_

#

Alura woke to the sound of smashing glass. She slipped out of bed and down the hall. Kara, in the bottom of her bunk bed, protected by a hanging sheet, slept like the dead. Astra's room was empty. Emptier than usual. The hammock that hung above the bare floor rippled in the air, unweighted by a body.Alura kept moving, down the stairs she'd barely seen, through to the door to the basement, the sound growing louder each move she made.

She descended into the laboratory she had prepared for Zor El, untouched since the news of the explosion from Krypton had reached earth. Young Alex moved like a fury through it, glass smashing against the mirrored walls, only a small lamp making the shards glitter like teeth in the night.

«Alex.»

Alex whirled. "I hate this!" Her hands were bruised and bloodied, her feet bare. "I hate you! I don't care what you say! I cannot believe I let you touch me like that! I can't--"

The torrent of English was too much for Alura to fully understand. «Alex-child,» she said. «Do not harm yourself.»

Alex startled, eyes going wide, as she realized which Kryptonian was with her. «I--» Her hand went up to her face. «Why am I like this?» She dashed another beaker from its perch. «Why can't I think of you like the monsters you are?»

«I'm sorry, Alex.»

Alex blew her nose into her shirt and looked around the shattered laboratory. «This was for your husband.»

Alura nodded. «It is all right. He will never use it.Zor El was not like us. He never even saw it. He died trying to save Krypton.»

«How do you live like this?» Alex rubbed her arm over her eyes. «How can you know that you've done so much that is wrong, made so many mistakes, and still--»

Alura let her hand rest on the _savomizer_ , watching her own fingers trail down the apparatus that Zor El had lusted after so much. «Even after I knew Krypton had been destroyed, I added to this laboratory. Perhaps I hoped he would be recovered in an escape pod, had realized at the last moment that he needed to flee. But save himself and leave all of those who could not board a ship to die? He would never have done that. He was better than me, stronger. I punish myself, but that pain is a luxury.»

Alex's hands came up, cupping her face, fingers pressing along the bridge of her nose. «I didn't save Dad. I didn't die with him. Why am I still alive when my world . . .»

«I ask myself that every day. For Kara, he said, but I am nothing to Kara, just a ghost in a room, a memory of a parent. Even without the guilt of bringing so much pain to a world that we had no right to invade, I failed, I failed at instituting change when there was still the possibility of slowing the damage to our world. I tried to hide the knowledge that we would all die. I made so many mistakes, and when I gave the order to evacuate it was too little too late. How do you evacuate a whole world? No. You received the worst of us, the ones who wished to save themselves most of all, who believed themselves entitled to life when we were the ones who destroyed it.»

«I should have died with him.»

«No. Alex. He should have lived with you.»

«I don't deserve to ever be happy! I don't deserve to feel anything but pain!» Alex stepped toward her, careless of the broken glass spread everywhere on the floor, and Alura swooped in, flying for the first time--she had never let herself--and scooped her up in her arms.

«I would not see you hurt more.»

Alex gasped. Alura hovered above the shattered laboratory, was the embrace too tight? But Alex turned in her arms and pressed her face against her shoulder. Hot tears dampened her shirt. She was so light, so delicate, to Alura's new strength, even weak as it was from hiding away from sunlight. She was grown, and yet she reminded Alura of Kara when she was even younger, four, perhaps, just beginning to realize that the world was wide and full of fear and pain and loneliness, and only mama could keep away those nightmares. Alura murmured soft things into Alex's ear, meaningless things. She had lost her whole world, Alura destroyed it, and still she goes limp in her arms, takes her comfort, as if there is anything to be done to amend it.

Alura floated up the stairs to the sofa, draped in blankets and pillows and scattered with stuffed animals--clearly presents from Kara--and settled onto it. Alex clings, her sobs quiet, and Alura raised each of her hands and kissed every cut and scar on them.

#

«Mama!»

Alura awakes to Kara's voice, a warm weight pressed to her chest. It is Alex, still sleeping the sleep of the dead, but Kara hovers in the air before the sofa, eyes wide and so joyful. «Mama. You came downstairs.»

Astra appears in the doorway of the kitchen, her gaze hard, but the concern it shields is written vividly behind it.

They have all learned to paper over their cracks, but Alura is not the only one whose world has shattered. She takes a breath and moves out from under Alex, laying her into her sleep position and tucking the blankets up around her shoulders. She opens her arms, and Kara hits her chest like a battering ram. Alura holds tight.

«Yes, Kara. I think I have been upstairs for too long. It is time to get some real work done.»

Astra scoffs from the doorway. «About time.» But there is a creak of hope in the hard words. «Can't save the world before breakfast though,» and she turns and disappears into the kitchen.

Alura holds onto Kara for longer than Kara wishes, but she does not struggle much. And that in itself is sad, for she should feel free to break away, play and be joyful, but she is afraid. If she lets go, will her mother disappear? Alura has made her think this way. She has made her so scared of loss.

But loss is inevitable. And holding on is solely a momentary respite.

#


	4. Assimilation

Something had changed in the house. Something besides the obvious, which was that Alura had emerged from her hermitage, and was down among them. Kara spent the first few days attached to her leg, and Astra kept encouraging her twin to go outside and take in sunlight. Alura however had found a space on the porch in the back where she moved some of her scrolls and took in the light without actually emerging from the house.

Kara was the only one with true freedom to touch though. Astra and Alura moved around each other like same-polarity magnets, moving close, until they found their limit and slid away. Except for training, and what training had led to, Astra had only ever touched Alex as part of a threat. But Alura was easy with her, always gentle, fingers brushing over her arm or across her back or the skin at the nape of her neck, encouraging her to eat more and asking how she was feeling.

Alex could feel Astra's sharp eyes on them every time Alura touched her. She couldn't say what it was about.

After the fight, after she'd cried in Alura's arms, Alex had gone back to feeling numb again. Numb was safe. Numb meant she didn't have to think about these two women and try to understand what their actions meant, what they saw her as, it meant she didn't have to judge herself for not feeling enough hate. She just didn't feel much of anything.

The only thing that remained was an aching sense of guilt every time she laughed when Kara told a new joke, every time she caught sight of her reflection in the mirror.

Alura came to her one evening with a key and a Kryptonian scroll device. Alex scrunched into the corner of her couch allowing for Alura to sit beside her, feet tucked up under her thighs. «I do not know how much of your father's steps you wish to follow in, but I am not a scientist nor Astra, and though the laboratory is somewhat depleted, it is still a skeleton ready for flesh.»

Confused, Alex did not respond. Alura put the key and scroll into her hands. «The laboratory and my husband's library are yours, for whatever use you wish to put them to. Please do not accidentally blow up the house.»

Alex's fingers wrapped around the smooth objects. «I wouldn't--»

Alura smiled. «If you do, please do it intentionally.»

She returned upstairs and Alex held onto the scroll and key, her father's face hovering before her eyes. The joy he would have had at gaining access to such a compendium of knowledge, the seriousness as he walked her through an experiment, the horror as he discovered what the Kryptonians--a people he had respected so much--had done. And then as he held her one last time before he tried to start the machine that would activate a genetic weakness in Kryptonian biology, his face--so worn and haggard--his arms holding her as close as he could as if he knew this could be nothing but goodbye.

_Be safe. Be safe. Be safe._

She was safe. That was the terrible kindness these Kryptonians had bestowed. She was safe, only she was safe, and she was alone.

The objects pressed to her chest, Alex curled up under the blanket, and pretended, just for a moment, that she was showing these things to her dad, talking to him about his favorite aliens. "I don't know if I like them so much. They're all kind of stuck up and righteous." "But their science! The work they've done on climatology, on--"

Tears dripped down her cheeks, from her chin. She had cried often enough since the invasion. But this was the first time, she thought, she'd simply cried because she missed him.

Astra woke her every morning when it was dim and grey outside and put her through the forms. But they did not spar again. Every touch felt different now, a simple brush to indicate direction, bloomed with heat. It cut through the numbness, and Alex didn't want to want this. Astra's gaze was always steady, focused. She watched her forms with the same intensity she'd watched Alex come apart in the mirror. Was this all a carefully planned seduction?

But when Alex reached for her, hands closing around her waist, half leaning in, Astra pushed her away. "Training time is for training."

The lurch in her stomach felt like rejection instead of guilt.

Kara found them once, when Astra had decided to add a complicated twist to one of the forms, and was watching with wide eyes. "Can I learn?" she asked.

Astra nodded and tossed a towel at Alex. "You train her."

"What?"

"The only way to be sure you know something is to teach it. And Kara," she bent to speak to her niece. "The most important thing you can learn is control. Alex is delicate. You must be careful not to hurt her."

Kara nodded seriously. She flew to Alex and squashed her in a not-quite-too-hard hug. "Thank you for teaching me!"

Alex squeezed the young Kryptonian back, meeting Astra's unreadable eyes over her shoulder. "My pleasure."

#

Alura left the house. She had a meeting, she said. She was going to sort things out. Kara was visiting her uncle and young cousin. Astra took out the lead box again.

The kryptonite gleamed, and they fought, more grappling forms this time, but still the beautiful spinning strikes. There was an edge to the battle, an expectation. Sparring wasn't training time. It was different. Alex's heart raced, her body seemed more sensitive and more strong. Astra's flesh gave under her blows.

Astra was better than her. Of course she was better. She had been training her entire life. She spun Alex around, pinning her to the wall, breathing hard in her face. Alex leaned in, and Astra met her halfway, the kiss rough and needy, and ending in struggle. Alex slipping down to the floor, clawing at Astra's tank top, her own shirt getting stuck on her head and then jerked off, her pants around her knees, and Astra holding her down, keeping her down, kissing her again and again until Alex's hips were jerking, desperate, seeking anything.

"Please. Please."

«Ask me in my language.»

«I don't-- I don't know the word for--»

"Fuck?" Astra's grin was wide and dangerous. "Alura would tell you «: _zhaole_.» But that's so formal. Say « _ugre_ »."

" _Ugrekhuhp_ ," Alex gasped. «Fuck me.»

Astra slid into her and Alex arched, crying out.

«I want you,» Astra murmured as she thrust into her, long and slow, with a twist at the end of each thrust. Alex rocked against her hand, against the weight of her body keeping her trapped. There was nothing she could do, nothing but take it. She swam into the pleasure, half divorced from her body and yet enveloped by its feeling. «I want to touch you, to keep you, to take you. Rao, I love this, not having to hold myself back with you.»

She released Alex's hands to pull down Alex's bra as she bent to bite at Alex's throat and collarbone, and Alex's hands buried themselves in her hair. Her hips jerked up and, at the touch of tongue on her nipple, she came. A warm collapse, Astra dropping down on top of her, her weight grounding and slick and perfect. She traced sticky fingers through Alex's hair and breathed into her neck.

Alex waited for the guilt, the self-hatred, the despair to well up, but Astra's weight seemed to be on top of that too. So she just lay there, letting the weight steady her like ballast.

#

«Are you all right?»

Alura had disappeared back into her room, and Alex hovered in the doorway, concerned. She'd caught her in the middle of undressing, Kryptonian robes falling to the floor, exposing the soft linen and cotton underthings she wore.

Alura turned, a quirk on her lips that made her resemble her sister in a way she didn't often. She swept her loose hair up into a twist and reached for the sweater she'd taken to wearing around the house. «Should I not be asking you that? Your stride is not as easy as usual.»

Alex went red. It had been a day and a half and still she felt sore, though really, mostly because of the sparring. Even with the kryptonite, Astra needed to hold back a little.

«I am fine.» Alura moved to her and cupped her cheek. «It has been a long day, not least because I should have begun my long days much earlier. There is a sad amount to amend, and change is slow.»

Alex leaned in, wanting to take away the tired lines from her forehead. Just barely, their lips touched, and then Alura's hand held her back, just enough so the brush of breath stayed humid on sensitized skin.

«I know this is how humans show affection, but it is not my way. Astra has always been . . . different.»

«I-- I'm sorry.» Alex tried to pull back, tense up. But Alura's hands curled behind her arms were like iron bars, just there, immobile. Her gaze, still on Alex's face, was just as steady.

«I have found very little tempting in this world save you.»

Alex found breath impossible to draw. Her knees shook.

«If this is something you wish, I can adapt. After all, we are all Earthlings now.» Alura pressed a light chaste kiss to Alex's cheek and sent her on her way.

Kara was swooping around the living room, so Alex grabbed a blanket and went down to her basement laboratory, now clear of broken glass, a few small experiments set up to test the equipment, and hid under the stairs, biting her own hand as she let her fingertips play over bruised flesh, imagining that they belonged to an alien--the one whose orders had brought the Kryptonians to earth, the one whose guilt lay heavier than her own.

She had never felt so weak, so human, at her inability to resist offering comfort or asking for their hands on her body. She had planned to do more than this, to be more, to fight. But what else could she do?

She had nothing besides what they gave her. She was nothing but what they let her be.

#

«Alura!»

The bellow of a man's voice made Alex freeze on the couch. She slipped over the back and ducked behind one of the half walls. A tall, imposing man in Kryptonian robes

«What do you want, Jor El?» Astra floated down from the balcony to stand in front of him, just out of the distance of a swing.

«I wasn't looking for you, not that you are any less of a thorn in my side.» He glared. «After the debacle you led, you should have been deposed immediately.»

«We won, Jor. Deal with me and my supporters as you can.»

«Jor El,» Alura, dignified as always, walked down the stairs. «What is all this commotion about?»

«You! And that new proposal that will waste our time. There is no need to discuss how humans could gain access to Kryptonian research units, much less weapons or technology. They have proven themselves unworthy quite decidedly. And the more time we waste worrying about the rats on our streets, the less business of government gets done.»

Alex struggled to parse this. Her Kryptonian had never been so fluent as it was now, but she did not like Jor El's accent or his use of formal vocabulary. _Humans_ , though, they were talking about other humans?

«I believe these 'rats' which you so unkindly call them, are, in fact, of primary importance. This is not our world, Jor El. Not solely our world at least, and it is beneath us to believe that it is.»

Alex found herself peering out further and further, watching Alura and Jor El face off, Astra hovering a foot in the air beside them, a hard smirk on her face whenever Alura spoke decisively. She had known Alura was a member of the council, that she was working on reorganizing the occupation force into a government. Alex had known she couldn't be the only survivor--there had been others in the prison with her, there were too many humans to bother with wiping them out. But where were they? What were they doing, while she was here, being kept and fed and coddled?

«There is a difference between treating them well and allowing a festering wound to spread. Giving them tools to destroy us--»

«Our interests are not all divergent. If there is danger to this planet, to the life upon it, do we not need to use every mind capable of thinking, every heart capable of insight? We know what happens when we do not use what we have, Jor El.»

«You are still grieving. It is interfering with your reason.»

« _I_ am still grieving?» Alura inquired. «And you are not? I, at least, still have my sister.»

Alex wanted to see her face, but the angles were wrong. Softly she took a step out of hiding.

Jor El glanced over, expression uninterested, as if he'd known there was someone there. But of course he had. He was Kryptonian, he could hear her heartbeat. When his eyes fell on her, they fixed and he stiffened. «What is that?»

«That,» Astra said coldly, «is Alex.»

Alex crossed her arms over her chest and stared at Jor El. Something in his face reminded her of Kara, but mostly she disliked it.

«It's a human.»

«She is our human,» Alura said, tiredly. «By right of blood.»

«Your human? What hypocrisy is this, Alura? You claim to be concerned with human advancement and their right to exercise their intellect, and you are keeping one as a pet?»

«Alex is not a pet.»

«A slave then. Chattel. You tore down the markets, Astra. And yet you keep one in your home?» The taut smile that lit his face was unpleasant and righteous. «I could undermine you right now. I could make such suggestions that you would be stripped of office, Alura, that Kara would be given into my care.»

«Stay away from Kara!» Alex snapped out, and Jor-El froze.

He whirled on Alura. «You taught her--»

«Alex is exceptional,» Alura said. «Why do you think I am certain that humans can be an aid to us, not simply vermin to be managed? She is the best of her people that I have encountered, and it inspires me to strive to be the best of mine.»

«There are laws against this.» Jor El turned to Alex. «You have my pity, child. The wild ones live hard lives but at least they are not kept in a cage and made to do tricks.»

«Get out, Jor El,» Astra snapped. «You do not have the right to speak to her.»

«Afraid I'd convince her to run?» Jor El glared at Astra. «I know well the rumors of your proclivities. You never respected the mores of Krypton.»

«The mores of Krypton are those of a dead world. They are dead like your brother, like all those we left behind. We are Krypton now, and we make mores as we please.»

Jor El sneered. «You don't even deny it. I will remember this when next your appointment is under contention.» He turned to Alura. «You will see me in council.»

«Yes,» Alura said. «I hope you remember your dignity there.»

He flew out the way he had come, and Alura shook her head and headed back up the stairs to her room.

Astra blew over. "I'm glad you'd fight for Kara." She ruffled Alex's hair. "You're a good girl, Alex."

Alex sank onto the couch as she left and put her head in her hands. Jor-El's words echoed in her head. 'The wild ones'. Alura's 'she is the best of her people'. Astra's 'good girl'.

_Collaborator._

#


	5. Escape

An emergency called both Astra and Alura to the council. Kara was at her uncle's again with whatever supervisor Jor El had left to watch her and Kal.

The house was empty. Alex waited for a few minutes, wondering how long it would take for the sound of her heartbeat to fade in their ears, and ducked into Alura's office.

What was this world like? What city was she even in? She'd seen some notes on Alura's desk about 'designated human reserved areas' including parts of the midwest and most of Texas. The vanquishing of Europe had gone differently and more of it was still standing. Australia had sent troops, and then a surrender message, and as far as Alex knew, no Kryptonian had done more than visit. She layered maps on maps, checked coordinates. Using the Kryptonian scrolls would surely trigger some kind of an alert, but there were other ways of determining her location.

As far as she could tell, she was in a town somewhere south of Albany. Soft borders bounded strangely shaped territories, a few marked with names. She found what she was looking for and slipped out. Pulling on a pair of boots and a sweatshirt, Alex tried the front door.

It was unlocked.

She had lived in that house for months, only venturing out into the back yard to play with Kara or run sprints for Astra. She had considered herself a prisoner, obeyed what she could not fight, and she had not even tried the door.

Not that running away would work. Not that you could out run a Kryptonian.

It was chilly now, coming on winter, and the trees were mostly bare. Other houses were set back from the road, enclosed by trees. Most had dingy and empty windows, a few with holes and missing parts. Some had clearly been taken over by other Kryptonians. They were mended in odd ways, or held pulsing satellites on the roof and alien dogs in the yard.

Alex slunk low to the ground as she passed them, heading toward the old train depot. Up in the sky, she saw colors and explosions and flying figures off in one direction. The emergency. It looked like they'd be busy for a while.

_Good, I have time to get back._

_Good, I'll have enough of a head start so I can hide._

Which did she really think? She didn't know.

Kara's hearing had gotten so good that she could tell which room Alex was in without even looking. She knew which heartbeat was which. But that had to be with a small comparison sample, right? Out of three hearts in a restrained space, she could pick the human. But out of the whole world, she couldn't recognize Alex's heartbeat. None of them could, right?

Alex picked up her pace, skidding down a steep hillside and cutting through an overgrown field toward the cluster of trees that marked the town.

The town felt ghostly--empty storefronts, still blinking street lights, lingering graffiti:  _Fuck aliens!_  along with other, more vivid visual images.

Where had all the people gone?

The closest boundary between human and Kryptonian territory was two towns away. Alex followed the freight tracks, over bridges and through strange wilderness.

The explosions were tailing off, and Alex hurried more. A freight train whistled and sailed down the tracks toward her, rumbling thunderously. Alex, ducking down a side path, glanced back to catch sight of an alien engine and slipped on loose rocks. She tumbled into a dim area under a bridge, barking her knee on a rock. She picked herself up and dusted herself off, testing her knee for sturdiness.

"Who's this now?"

A shadowed figure peered out from the ledge between the deck of the bridge and the concrete pylons. "You're too clumsy to be a Krypto."

"What?"

Another figure moved around the bend in the bridge. "Sure looks like one though?"

Alex shifted into a careful stance. She'd been living in Kryptonian for so long, it was strange to think in English again. "Why do I look like a 'Krypto'?"

"You don't have a weapon but you're still fat."

"You guys look like you eat well enough." And they did, dirty though they were, with greasy hair, pasty skin and rough clothing, they both seemed healthy. Big, strong and healthy. She'd put hard money on them having weapons.

"It pays to be on the right side of the black market."

"Look," Alex said, opening her hands. "I just-- I was being held captive by some Kryptonians. They were keeping me as a pet. Running tests and stuff. I got away. I'm trying to find somewhere safe to hide."

"We know where it's safe." One of the guys smiled.

"Yeah?" Alex didn't like these guys. But they were the first humans she'd seen in months. "You gonna show me?"

"Sure."

The taller guy swung down from his perch under the bridge. He offered Alex his arm. Alex smiled tightly and shook her head. He shrugged, and the two hustled along the path and then up a small slope to an empty highway. They paused before stepping out, scanning the skies. They hurried across and led the way into a dark tunnel of trees.

"What's it like out here?" Alex asked.

"What do you mean?"

Alex shrugged. "I've been kept captive since the war. I was around for the blackouts and powercuts, but they were done by our side. I was just wondering how the Kryptonians run things."

One of the guys snorted. "'Our side,' you _are_ out of touch."

"Well, what's it like?"

"Starting to wonder if you should head back to your cushy cell?"

Alex glared at him. There were about six Kryptonian strikes that would put him in so much pain he'd sing like a bird. But she was _trying_ to make friends. "I just want to know what it's like."

"Kryptos are preachy assholes. They dump shit for us, food, energy cells, but they don't give a fuck. Nah, it's simple, if we stay out of their way, they don't interfere. No one gives a shit anymore. The war, the resistance, that's long gone."

The resistance was gone? Alex couldn't believe that.

"Wait, so no one is fighting the Kryptionians?"

The tall guy stared at her. "Fighting them? How?"

The tunnel of trees ended at the back entrance to a warehouse. One of the guys thumped Alex on the shoulder. He slid the door open onto grey shadow and gestured her inside. "Welcome home."

Alex stopped cold. Hell no. You didn't walk into a place you didn't know how to get out of. But before she could decide which way to run, a two-by-four came out of nowhere, swinging at her face. She ducked, but too slow, and it clipped the side of her head. She stumbled, and the bigger guy grabbed her and shoved her forward into the warehouse. Skidding across the concrete floor on her stomach, she came to a halt in a heap of broken glass.

The warehouse was less dim inside. The edges of the room were piled with aid boxes, printed in Kryptonian and awkwardly stamped English. Some half open, contents dumped on the ground and trod on. Other young men were on them, sitting and smoking, or playing chicken up on the top.

"Hey guys! Fresh meat!"

The two who had brought her here stepped inside and shut the door behind them.

How to get out? Alex searched for the nearest and least guarded exit. Instead, her eyes fell on a small figure of indeterminate gender in an overly large jacket and no shoes.

It was a kid, Kara's age, or maybe a little older. Two boys were sitting on boxes behind, seeing how far they could spit wads of some black substance towards the kid. The kid didn't move as balls of gunk landed in their hair. Hunched and holding their arm close to their chest, their shoulders shuddered. Pain or tears? Neither were any good.

Alex slowly brought her hand up to her head. There was swelling there, but no blood. Keeping an eye on the surroundings, staying out of range of a grab from the guys, she got to her feet, testing out her balance.

Behind her was the nearest door, but it was shut and locked. The kid was closer to the cracked truck bay.

All right, time to talk.

"What the fuck, dickweed?"

"You still curious about how we live down here?" The taller guy laughed. "We live like kings! Just like we were always meant to."

"Off the Kryptonian's relief aid? What kind of assholes are you?" How could they? Other humans probably needed those supplies. They thought they'd be petty dictators in their little pond. God, sometimes she thought humans deserved this. Not that Kryptonians were better, no, she'd seen enough of the glee on their faces when they killed humans like rats. Why hadn't they killed these ones? "And how can you be kings? Someone else has taken your planet."

"Whatever. They're aliens. Let them do what they want. And _please_ let them send us more aid. We rig a few more of these energy cells together and we've got a bomb that can take out the Filhers."

"The Filhers?"

"The dicksnots down in Filher that want our supplys."

"Other humans." Alex wanted to kick these idiots in the head. Aliens had taken their world and they were fighting their neighbors. Wasn't the point that finally when aliens attacked humanity would have some reason to stick together? Alex supposed no one talked about what happened once they'd lost. "You care more about other humans taking supplys that aren't even yours to begin with than the Kryptonians?

"All we want is for the Kryptonians to stay out of our way. We've got more important things to deal with."

"More important?" More important than her war? Than her world losing to the alien invasion? "God, the Kryptonians need to come and sort you out. You are full of so much shit! You are--"

"Good job," said a long lazy boy, sliding down from a heap of boxes. "You can spot a K-Fucker at twenty yards, can't you? And this one's even pretty."

Alex went still. "I'm not a spy."

"We know." This new boy smiled, fluffing his curly hair. "We've seen your sort before, 'prisoners' they call themselves. Old war heroes and other idiots, still seething with anger over the loss. They want to start a rebellion. Dumb fucks, the lot of them. We don't want to fight Kryptonians. It's like fighting the rain. Good luck with that. But these idiots show up, well fed and healthy, and thinking like they're the second coming, and all they find out is that the rules are different here. The first rule is don't attract attention. If Kryptonians feel like they have to 'deal' with a community, half your population is dead and everyone's sweeping shit in the streets.

"But these heroes are desperate for the Kryptonian's attention. They're desperate to 'mean' something, because they all wished they'd died in the war. We put them down before they can cause trouble. But you . . ." His eyes slid over her, feeling far more like x-ray vision than any of her Kryptionians' looks ever had. ". . . I bet we can make you see the error of your ways."

"You wish." Heat vision would make this easy, burn the place with cleansing fire. But all she had was her flimsy human body. Fuck them all. She wasn't afraid.

In two strides she'd reached him, spinning and turning, her leg out, heel heavy like a weight, and curly-boy was flying back into the boxes. A few sounds, others starting to rise, safeties clicking off, but she was still moving, not stopping, chasing the forms, long ones to stretch toward the next few, short ones to land a punch in one guy's temple, another to kick out a knee and hear it snap.

The kid's eyes were wide, looking up at her, something like hope in them, and Alex scooped them up under one arm and threw them toward the crack in the door. They stumbled toward it, awkward on swollen feet, and Alex ducked a strike and kneed a guy in the balls, and then she was through too, after the kid. The hammer blows of a double shot echoed like a gong in the metal sheeting.

She grabbed the kid, swung them up onto her back and ran.

She heard shouts, a debate over pursuit, and the whistle of a bullet through the leaves a breath away from her arm. Only then did her ears register the report of the firearm. Fuck. She ran faster.

Stumbling down gullies, and ducking under branches, she listened to scrabbling and shouts, listened until she heard nothing coming after her. In the distance, the whistle of the train cut through the air. Alex turned her steps toward it, the kid bouncing against her shoulders, and settled into an easy lope.

"Hey," the kid said from above, their voice soft.

"Hey," Alex gasped back. "You all right."

"Are you going to sell me too?"

"What?"

"They said they wanted to sell me. They were bored of having me tag along."

"No," Alex said. "No, I'm not going to sell you. We're escaping."

"Okay."

What had happened to this kid? They should be scared, they should be crying or shouting and fighting. But they just accepted it. Shock? Numbness? Alex knew what that felt like. "What's your name?"

"Lucy."

Okay. "I'm Alex."

"Thank you for the lift."

Alex grinned between huffs of air. There was no sign of pursuit. The air was clear of Kryptonians. "Are your feet hurt?"

"I'm sorry. The last time I had to run there was glass. And my sister said to go, that I just had to go, and she couldn't go with me. So I ran through the glass, and then the building blew up."

"Lucy . . ."

"They were getting better, but these ones made me run so they could laugh at me, and they got infected, I think."

Alex stumbled onto the train tracks and recognized where she was. She breathed out and slowed to a walk. She was sweaty and shaky, the adrenaline wearing off and taking its toll.

She hadn't made a mistake. She'd gotten out, and gotten the girl out. But where did she go from here?

She knew.

With each step along the tracks, her stride grew more hesitant. She'd turned back, was going back because everything she'd found outside was worse. Would they let her come back? Would they be angry with her?

"I can walk. It just hurts."

"I'm fine carrying you," Alex said. "We're just going home." The word hit in her gut. When had the stolen McMansion become home? When had she decided to trust three Kryptonians more than she trusted humans?

But it was the right word. There wasn't any other that she could use.

#


	6. Homecoming

Astra didn't think she would ever get the scent of charred flesh and explosives out of her nose. Even miles away she could still scent the burning pyre she'd left in a kiln of fallen brick and tarred beams.

The alert had come that morning from one of the new human creches in one of their least troublesome territories. The human representatives there had kept hold of the infrastructure and managed the transition of power with only a minimal disturbance of law and order.

The creche, on the outskirts, though managed by Kryptonians, had been a human child-garden before, and had human facilitators running the day to day, and therefore did not have enough security. Some fool had decided that humans would be honorable enough to not use their own spawn as shields. And perhaps you could pick random samples from the whole population and never find one who would, but when every human on the planet wanted Kryptonians dead, surely there would be at least one with no scruples.

When Astra's command heard that a creche was under attack, the response team had been immediate. They had flown right into the waiting kryptonite laced bombs.

Relief and rescue squads were held back while other teams went in to secure the area. Lead lined boxes placed around the city drew their attention distracting them long enough for cleverly disguised explosives to take out whole squads. One of far too few surviving human communities was devastated for the sake of murdering a dozen Kryptonian soldiers.

The human representatives of this city, horrified by the bombings, contacted Alura with information about resistance groups in the area. Astra assembled the remnants of her old team, and they found the nest of serpents who had planned this attack.

When the squinty-eyed, flabby-faced leader realized that his defenses had been carefully disarmed, he swore at them, pressing button after button to no avail. Astra had looked at this man who had based his plan on murdering children and let her eyes boil.

His charred corpse would lie in the middle of his failed rebellion forever.

Alura had found her at the new citadel as she tried to wash off the ash, wash away the smells and the screams and the memories. She tore the offered towel in half, and growled at Alura's impassive quiet.

She pulled a clean jumper on over her undershirt and knotted her wet hair behind her head. She did not look at Alura or herself, just threw her stinking boots into the incinerator. "It was supposed to be over."

"It's never over."

The quiet words clawed through her. And when Alura reached out, reached for her--finally, after nearly a year of no touch and hardly any eye-contact--Astra jerked out of range. She didn't want comfort. She wanted to break something in half.

Bonfire scents on the dawn air, they reached the house. Astra needed to see Kara, needed to be sure she was all right. She had looked into the eyes of a man who would have no qualms binding Kara with kryptonite and dissecting her today. She could not forget the wreckage his bomb had left, delicate limbs torn asunder, and though Kara was not delicate--she was strong and swift and smart--it did not wipe the visions from her eyes.

«Mama? Aunt Astra?» Kara said, peeking out from the blankets on Alex's couch. «Alex isn't here.»

Kara was here. Kara was fine. But the house felt wrong, sounded wrong, and Astra listened and heard the silence where their clumsy slow human was supposed to be, her heartbeat, the sound of her breath, all missing.

A flush of rage relit itself in Astra's chest.

«What?» She flew through the house, knowing she would find nothing, and looking anyway, not trusting her x-ray vision, not trusting anything. «Where the hell is she? Jor El didn't--»

He wouldn't take her, would he? Would someone else? Who else knew she lived here? Who else knew what she meant? Ransom or warning?

But Alura interrupted her train of ever-more-paranoid thought. «The compass has been moved on my desk. She looked at maps and dressed warmly before she went.»

Astra froze. «She left?» Her next words came out in a growl. «She just left? If she comes back, I will kill her. She is ours. She doesn't have the right--»

She'd wanted to break something. That scrawny human would do. Why were humans like this? You never knew what they were thinking. Rao, she'd trusted Kara with her. And at least Kara was fine, at least she hadn't decided to leave Kara's corpse for them to find.

Alex-- damn her! Didn't she know she was human? Didn't she know that vermin like her murdered each other in the street? Ungrateful, foolish--

«Astra,» Alura said, an irritating calmness in her tone. « _Astra_.»

« _What?_ »

Kara cowered on the sofa, hugging one of the bears she'd given Alex to her chest, but Astra could not regret the anger that still burned hot through her.

«You had to have expected this.»

And again, Alura said things that were absurd.

«Expected this? Expected that the imbecilic child would run away?» Astra's eyes bubbled with heat vision. «No. I'm going after her. I am going to bring her back. And then we will see what punishment she deserves.»

«If she felt she had to run away, that is her decision.»

«No, it is not!» Astra whirled on her. «Stop being reasonable about this. She is just a flimsy little human. What if she is hurt? What if more of those thugs we have just spent the day hunting kill her? She has been with us since the war. She doesn't know what it's like out there.»

Alura breathed in and out before she spoke, maintaining control. «Perhaps that is what she wanted to find out.»

«I don't care what she wanted to find out. She could have _asked_. That idiot--»

As Astra paced circles in the air, Kara had been frowning, focusing. Then she perked up. «It's okay. She's okay. She's coming home.»

Those words shook Astra more than the notice she had left. Not injured, not dead. Then what? Was she leading other humans back to fight them? Had she found herself a kryptonite knife and planned to make use of it again?

It had always been a risk, teaching Alex Kryptonian martial arts, letting her live with them, heal and stay. But she had owed her that much, and Kara had bonded with her and then even Alura was cuddling her on the sofa and it was as if everyone had forgotten that she was a prisoner of war, that it was her duty to endeavor to escape, to kill her captors. She had taken her opportunity to flee, and that should have been the end of it. But now she was returning. Why?

«How do you know that?» Alura asked.

«I can hear her. Her heartbeat is coming closer.»

«You can pick out her heartbeat?» Astra asked.

«Of course. Can't you?»

Astra met Alura's gaze, recognizing that the soft surprise on her face matched her own. She listened, letting the sounds of the world spill in. And there, a familiar _ka-thump_ , something she hadn't realized she knew. She had not realized that the sound marked relief. She could hear one more faint heartbeat nearby, but otherwise nothing. No, Alex was not leading a mob back to their home.

Astra scooped Kara into her arms. «That's some good sensitivity there. Perhaps you'll be one of my scouts one day.»

Kara laughed and burrowed into the embrace. Kara had been worried too. Alex had made Kara worry. That was entirely enough to deserve punishment. «If she tries anything like this again, I will track her down and I will kill her, or--» Astra glanced down at Kara whose eyes were wide and unhappy. «--tell her just how much trouble she's in.»

«Perhaps . . . don't yell at her immediately.» Alura suggested. «Knowing she has the freedom to leave and come back may encourage her to want to stay.»

 _Want to stay?_ What Alex wanted had nothing to do with it. «You can do that if you want. I plan to express my displeasure.»

«There's someone with her,» Kara said.

And then, before they could finish deciding what to do, the door opened and Alex, dirty and bruised, limped through, a smaller figure, a child, drowsy like a turtle on her back. She went still, seeing the tableau, the fear written on her face and in the stutter of her heartbeat.

Astra took in her scuffed and tired shape, mussed hair and a mark on her cheek. She had returned, struggling like a soldier out of the night, after the battle lines had fallen, half ashamed, half proud. The child drew her gaze, big eyes and dirty hair and vivid lines of pain quivering her mouth. Another child who wasn't dead, who wasn't broken apart in the wreckage of hate.

Alex had rescued a child.

«Shut the door,» Alura said. «You're letting in a draft.»

Alex awkwardly lurched to close it, and Alura reached her, reaching out to the girlchild on her back. "Who is this?"

The girl blinked, eyeing them with tense suspicion.

"This is Lucy," Alex said. "Um--"

One x-ray glance was enough to know that she was injured. Alura, who had clearly done the same, waved at Astra, «Medical supplies, please.» She reached up and took the girl into her arms. "I think you need a bath."

Astra, anger dissipated like smoke, flew off to grab supplies. Lucy's eyes went wide, but she stayed steady in Alura's arms. When Astra returned, Alex was slumped against the door, letting out a breath, relief written on her face. Kara sneakily slid in next to her and wrapped her arms around her. Alex pulled her in and they held each other.

Both safe. Both home. It would be enough for now.

#

"Well, this is no good," Astra said, poking at Lucy's feet where they hung over the edge of the tub.

Alura felt soft amusement wash over her. Astra was always so different around children. The silent shield made of pain and rage slid back inside, leaving warmth and gentleness that reminded Alura of when they were children.

Alura offered her a clean scalpel and let her hand rest on Astra's shoulder for a moment. Astra glanced up to take the blade, softness and hurt in her expression. But she did not draw back or refuse the touch. This was the first time Alura had touched her since Zor El died.

Astra turned her attention back to the nervous looking child in the bath. "You've got some infections here.

Lucy nodded seriously.

"We have some medicines, but I think I should re-open some of the wounds and drain them. The swelling is enough they might open up on their own."

"It's okay. I don't mind pain."

Astra squeezed her shin. "You're a good soldier."

Lucy nodded. "That's what my dad used to day. He was a general."

The scalpel hovered over the most swollen cut. It was already oozing pus. "Was he, now? I'm also a general."

"Oh!" At the moment of her surprise, Astra stuck in the scalpel and then squeezed the pussy bloody ooze out into a cloth. Lucy winced. Alura reached out and took her hand, and Lucy gratefully squeezed it.

"I fear your father was probably one of my adversaries." Another wound opened and cleaned.

"It's all right," Lucy said. "He's dead."

Alura placed her other hand over top of Lucy's small one and held it.

"When he heard about the surrender he shot himself."

Astra's expression went hard, focused. "He abandoned you."

Lucy shrugged her small brown shoulders. "Captains go down with their ships."

"And Generals have the duty to protect their troops, even as a prisoner."

"Astra," Alura said softly.

Astra's shoulders slumped. She finished cleaning the last wound. With her heat vision, she carefully sealed each one. "I understand the shame of defeat," she said. Careless of the water, she scooped Lucy out of the bath and set her on the edge. She wrapped her in a towel, carefully patting dry the arm that Lucy still held close to her chest. "But some things are too precious to abandon."

#

When Alura came back downstairs following Astra who carried Lucy, now dressed in some of Kara's borrowed clothes, a cast on her arm, and her feet wrapped in gauze and then covered by comfy socks, Kara was curled up on Alex's lap on the sofa, blowing small puffs of freeze breath on the welt on her head.

Lucy looked like a kid, not a vagabond, and Kara perked her head up, eyeing her with suspicion. Lucy looked back, a line furrowing in her brow.

"Kara, this is Lucy," Alura said. "She's going to be sleeping in your top bunk. And she isn't allowed to walk anywhere, so if she asks I expect you to give her a lift, all right?"

Kara pouted. "I'm not a nurse." Lucy scowled at the same time. "I don't need help."

"That's an order," Astra said. She pointed at Lucy, still hooked in her arm. "You don't walk." Her hand turned to point at Kara. "And you are on call, all right?"

Both girls scowled but accepted it.

Astra settled Lucy onto the sofa next to Alex and Kara. Kara leaned in closer and frowned at the cast. "What is that for?"

"My arm is broken," Lucy said. "It keeps it straight so it heals right."

"Your arm is _broken_? How do arms break? Does it hurt? Will it heal like before or will it always be weird?"

"Arms break sometimes," Alex said, laughing a little. "I broke my arm when I was your age, and it's all fine now."

Kara, mouth parting in surprise, squinted. "Oh! I can see. It's like a bone scar. And without the cast will it still heal?"

"Sometimes it will get twisted and then it will heal but at an angle."

"Ohh."

Alura watched the discussion, proud of her daughter in ways she could not express. She had almost expected Alex would flee. The sweetness, the loyalty in the past few days had spelled a crisis. No matter how Astra seemed to think that a mental breakdown could be overcome with the stability of order and command, the cracks in Alex's heart were still so fragile. The only things that could heal them were time and understanding. Whatever other bonds Alex was making, Alura was certain it was Kara who had made her feel safe enough to come back.

Alura left the room, stepping into the kitchen where Astra was angrily putting together a meal. She moved beside her and gently knocked Astra with her hip. «You're not the only one who brings home strays anymore.»

«Alex isn't a stray,» Astra said, scowling. «Alex is--»

«Extraordinary.»

«I was going to say 'a prisoner'.» Astra breathed out a weak laugh. «But you're right. She came back. What prisoner comes back?»

«You did.»

Astra frowned at her, «What do you mean?»

«When you broke the news about Krypton's death. I put you in jail. Non broke you out, and you came right to me.»

«That was different. I didn't go back to prison. I went home.»

«I know.»

She saw the realization and recognition on Astra's face, the sorrow that cut behind it. And Alura leaned into her, lacing her fingers across the bare skin on the back of Astra's neck. Astra's hands closed on her hips, and slowly they drew together, brushing the tips of their noses against the other's.

They stayed that way, until the scent from the cooking meat grew touched with char, and shared breath.

#


	7. Forgiveness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Hanukkah! And Christmas Eve! And other calendrical marked celebratory events!
> 
> Here is smut for the holidays!

_They held her down. Alex fought, struggled, but none of it was enough. She could see his face, the face of the Kryptonian she'd killed, the face of the curly-haired asshole, the way he'd laughed. And then arms came from behind, Astra wrapping around her, not in violence, closing her in an embrace, and every mark she'd left on Alex's body glowed green like Kryptonite._

_Her dad took the place of the curly-asshole, seeing the marks, his eyes going wide with confusion, then understanding and betrayal. "They murdered me. They destroyed everything."_

_"I know," Alex wept. "I know."_

«I know.»

«What do you know?»

Alex jerked out of her dream. Kara was standing in front of her soft, barefoot and soft with sleep.

«What are you doing down here?»

«Lucy needed the bathroom. And I heard you saying things in your sleep.» Kara crossed her arms over her chest and hunched into them. «You were crying.»

Alex reached up and wiped tears away from under her eyes. «Sorry if I scared you.»

«You scared me yesterday, when you weren't here.»

«Yeah,» Alex sighed and shifted, opening up a space for Kara. «I had to go. I'm sorry you were worried.»

Kara took the space and curled up against Alex's shoulder. «Where'd you go?»

«I went . . . I went to see if I could find any other humans.»

«You don't need other humans. You have us.»

Alex sighed. «You remember why I'm here, right?»

«You killed Uncle Non, so you belong to us now.»

«What does that mean? To belong to you?»

«It means you can't leave like that!» Kara squeezed her arm too tight. «You're ours. You're an In-Ze now. You're family.»

«So, I killed your uncle and then took his place?»

Kara frowned. «I didn't like Uncle Non. He was scary.»

«Even so,» Alex swallowed hard. «How can you be okay with me killing him? I amd glad I did. I would have killed others too, if I'd been strong enough. They killed my dad. They took apart my world, destroyed the good parts and the bad parts. Everything is different. I know your world is gone too, but it's not the same. It wasn't a mistake or a disaster or an act of god, it was people who did it. How am I supposed to not hate Kryptonians? How am I supposed to live with them, and not try to fight, try to run, try to hurt you?»

Kara's blue eyes were steady in the dim light, She wrapped her arms around Alex's neck and held her. «I don't know.»

Alex cuddled the small strong body into her, breathed in her scent, ached at its sweetness, its purity. Her dad's bio-toxin wouldn't have cared about that. It wouldn't have spared children. It wouldn't have cared about intention or guilt or obligation. If he had released it, would their situations be reversed? All traces of Krypton would be gone. Would she be like Alura, seeing what had been done in the name of self preservation and wondering if it was worth it? Or as Kryptonians were piled into mass graves, would she even care? The alien menace had been defeated. Would she know she was standing in the wreckage of a ruined world?

«Would it help?» Kara murmured. «Would it help if you could hurt me?»

«What? No!» She crushed Kara as firmly into her as she could, knowing that it would never be too strong. «If there is something I'm sure is good about this, it's you. I just-- I just wish everything didn't have to be like this.»

«But it is.» Kara pressed her face against Alex's shoulder. «Wishing can't change things. My dad said, before he died, that hope is what hurts us. Hope makes us freeze in place. Maybe we'll be lucky, maybe we'll wake up and it will all have been a dream, maybe things won't be as bad as they look like they're going to be.» Her voice hitched a little, and Alex stroked her hair. She wasn't the only one who'd lost her dad.

«Mama doesn't hope she can fix all the things that have gone wrong. Aunt Astra never hopes to win a war in one grand move. They plan and work for the next small real thing. My dad stayed on Krypton, not because he hoped it wouldn't explode, but because it was his job to try to fix it. It didn't matter whether it would work or not, as long as he tried with everything he had. Guilt is just backwards hope. Neither of them get anything accomplished.»

Alex swallowed, feeling the weight of her words. «Don't hope, fight.»

«Exactly.» Kara shifted a little to look Alex in the face again. «And although I am not happy about having to share my room and having to speak _English_ , I'm glad you brought Lucy back here.»

«Why?»

«Because it helped her. That's the important thing. You do what helps.»

Alex sniffled. Her dad had said the same thing. _No one can save the world all on their own, Alex. You just do what you can to help._ «How can I? How can I do anything to help when I'm here?»

Kara held her hand. «You'll figure it out. But you're home here. Aunt Astra always says you strike harder when starting from stable ground. It's good to have a home.»

Alex shut her eyes and dragged breath in and out through the ache in her chest, Kara's glowing warmth steady against her. Home. She could feel her dad watching her again. She could see Alura taking Lucy into her arms, Astra treating her wounds and cheering her up.

Nothing was simple anymore. Nothing had ever been simple. Betrayal or not, shameful or not, she needed to stay. She needed to be allowed to stay.

#

"I am so upset with you, running off like that, not telling us, not letting us protect you."

Astra stood over her, fists balled, the house around them still and empty. Alex felt the tingling spread over her skin. _Finally_ , finally someone was going to punish her for running away. She'd been waiting for days. The swelling on her head was finally gone, and Astra had woken her up at dawn to begin her training once more. After so much enforced inaction, Alex was sweaty and tired after barely an hour, but Astra was still perfect, pristine, except for her hair, strands coming out of the tail to tumble around her face.

"I had to go."

"I don't care. Your reasoning is irrelevant to me. You left. You need discipline."

"I--"

"No. You don't get to speak. You may say, 'Yes, General Astra' or 'No, General Astra, but that is all."

Alex took a shaky breath. "Yes, General Astra."

"Stand. Pants down."

Alex gulped and shakily rose to her feet. With fumbling fingers she unfastened her trousers and slid them down to her knees. Astra didn't touch her, just watched, impassive.

"Bend over the back of the sofa."

Alex chewed on the inside of her lower lip. Slowly she let the back of the couch hit her right below her hips. She flattened over the top, reaching down to stuff her fingers just under the attached cushions. Inverted, her head swam, and she rested the top on the cushions. She couldn't see Astra anymore. The only thing facing her was her underwear clad ass. And still Astra did not touch her.

"Tell me," Astra purred. "Do you think that I consider it perfectly allowable that you put your life in danger?"

"No, General Astra," Alex mumbled into the cushion.

"Do you think that I appreciate you being injured?"

"No, General Astra."

"Do you think that I find your association with humans and other vermin to be pleasing?"

Alex stayed silent.

"Let me clarify. Do you think that I wish you to be in the clutches of such people as would leave Lucy in the state you found her?"

"No, General Astra."

"Then act like it." And finally a smack, gentle for a Kryptonian, but hard for a human, hard enough to redden the skin on the side of her ass. Alex made a noise and clutched at the cushions.

"You are too precious to risk on such foolishness."

Another swat, this one through her underwear, and harder. She felt the palm and each finger strike, hard enough to leave a handprint on her ass. The punishment was so controlled, pain interwoven with scolding. Alex whimpered and tried to roll her hips to grind off on the back of the couch, but it was at just the wrong angle.

"You acted like a child, like a fool."

Another slap, this one stung so much that the repressed moan escaped from Alex's chest.

"If you get yourself killed, you will have damaged our family irreparably."

Another strike and Alex wailed.

"Any more foolish risks like this and I will have no choice--"

Alex gasped for air, waiting for the next hit, the next sting that would fade into throbbing heat. One more and it would spill over, either into orgasm or agony. Probably agony. It hurt, it already hurt so much.

"--if you endanger yourself again, we will send you away."

The words gripped like a vice in Alex's gut, the haze from the spanking shuddering into cold clarity. She gasped and felt her eyes sting with tears. "I won't. I promise I won't."

"Good." Astra stroked the unbruised skin of her lower back. "This does not mean you are helpless. Ask. I will give you what you need to be safe."

Alex whimpered, nodding.

Gently, Astra slid her underwear down over her reddened ass. They clung to her wet core. Even the light pressure made her skin burn. Astra breathed in her scent, then blew on her hand and traced icy fingers down her spine and in trails across the reddened bruise-blooming skin. The cold seemed to shoot right through her, making her ache all the more. Alex forced herself to stay still, quaking slightly.

"Is that enough punishment? Will you do it again?"

Alex struggled for breath, and couldn't find it. She shook her head. She shook it fiercely.

"You came back," Astra murmured. "You deserve a reward for that."

Alex, dripping down the inside her thighs, made a wordless begging sound.

"I expect that of you, Alexandra. Come back." Her cold fingers slid into Alex's overheated cunt.

It felt like forgiveness.

#

«Alex,» Alura's voice called her into the dark room. Alex slipped inside, closing the door behind her, and feeling the peace and softness of the occluded windows. «Come here.»

Alex stepped to stand next to her, where she sat at her desk, scrolls spread out around her. «What do you need?»

«I want you to tell me what you saw.» Alura looked up, pushing her hair back. «What did you make of the world outside?»

Alex took a breath and thought back through it. «I didn't see much, but what I did see was chaos. I ran into a gang running a black market of relief aid. They didn't seem to care about Kryptonians at all. As long as you left them alone, they weren't scared of you. They just wanted a little more power over other humans, a little more pleasure and control.» Alex ran her hand through her hair. «Is it like that everywhere?»

Alura sighed. «Not everywhere, but often enough. If there is no delegated authority to hand the aid to, it's simply dropped. Scavengers become packs and begin hoarding and selling. The goal is to create self-sustaining communities with economic ties to Kryptonian communities. But in many places people are too afraid to meet with us and take care of the relief. Jor El says that the gangs and militias are a natural stepping stone to government. That their lack of fear is a good thing and that once they become complacent in their power they will turn into reasonable local authority.»

«I would never want them to become an authority.»

Alura nodded. «Those who want power are never those who deserve it. One of your thinkers said something like that.»

"Plato?"

Alura smiled. «Perhaps. I have been trying to read as much as I can, but the English spelling system is so strange, it is hard to remember names.»

Alex sighed. «With so little organization, I feel like it's not safe that they have guns. I was lucky, and Lucy also, that we didn't get shot.»

Astra nodded. «There are suppliers somewhere. After surrender and disarmament a new black market emerged. They are no threat to us, only to each other, but sending in Kryptonians to search for them--we do not want to appear too much to be a police state.»

«If it came along with schools and community centers, it might be able to go under the radar.»

Alura snorted. «Re-education centers, do you mean? We have had some troubles with that. The few who dare to go are attacked for collaborating--rather for trying to take more than the suffering that is their due. I understand why there is resistance to working together, but after all the ugliness we have bestowed on them, to see it replicated by humans against themselves, it is saddening. And that is not even thinking on the Kryptonians who found such pleasure in cruelty they cannot stop. We have caught and put down too many who hunt humans for sport.»

Nausea rose in Alex's gut and she cupped a hand over her face, trying to breathe in. Alura looked at her, rubbed her temple, and then drew her into her lap. «Astra is dealing with those. I have instructed her not to torture people, but I am not checking.» Her words puffed breath across the back of Alex's neck, stirring her hair.

«But we have plans, for a new center on the southern end of what was Chicago. It is housing, food and education all combined. It does not look like a fortress, but access is restricted and monitored. We intend to expand in a ring encompassing a good deal of arable land. I have hope for universities and centers of industry, but they are opium dreams as yet.»

Alex touched the projected model of the installation. «You're building a panopticon?»

«Do you just mean 'life with Kryptonians'?»

Alex laughed, and the surprise and warmth that spread across Alura's face was beautiful.

«I want to help,» Alex said. «I need to . . . keep trying to make things better.»

Alura turned her, tracing her fingers along her cheek and tucking her hair back behind her ears. «You already have, and I have no doubt you will continue.»

Alex nosed forward and let her lips just brush against Alura's, asking. Slowly, motionlessly, Alura lifted her chin, bumping their part-open mouths together. Her fingers stroked Alex's hair and teased the back of her ear. Alex, still holding still, waiting, made a little sound, and then the press of mouths became a kiss, the tease became a hold, firm and stable.

Alex gave herself into the embrace, parting her lips and lifting up her chin for her as Alura dragged her tongue and the inside of her lower lip across Alex's in a slow diagonal swipe. Her hands slid down Alex's back, tweaking at the empty belt-loops on her pants, then across her ass, squeezing. The bruises Astra had left throbbed and Alex let a little sound escape into her mouth. Alura smiled against her lips, then trailed wet kisses across her cheek to her ear.

«Would you like this?» she murmured. «I have been giving it more thought than perhaps I should.»

Alex nodded, not quite able to catch her breath. «Yes.»

"Good. _Placet me_."

Alura lifted Alex up, pushing aside the scrolls on her desk, and settled her on the edge. Alex's fingers trailed hesitantly through her hair, and Alura glanced up, giving her an acknowledging nod. Alex let her hands bury deeper, as Alura unfastened her trousers and tugged them and her underwear down and off. Alex, lifted up like she was nothing, and then settled down again, naked, bruised ass on the hardwood of the desk, could barely breathe at the polished texture, the sharp indentation of the edge. She could already feel her wetness slicking the surface.

Alura twitched at the hem of Alex's shirt, and Alex took the hint and pulled it off, then scrabbled at the fastening to her bra. Alura reached up and took over, sliding it off her arms and adding it to the folded pile on the floor. Naked, Alex hovered on the edge of the desk, waiting, as Alura rolled her chair back a foot or so, and watched her.

Alex hunched slightly. She hadn't been naked in front of someone--since she was a child, really. Pants down or shirt off was as close as she'd gotten before, even when she'd had sex. And her body now--the knotted scar tissue on her side, the scratches and bruises, the way Astra's training had shaped and defined her muscles, yet how flimsy and weak she was compared to any Kryptonian--what was looking at her like? Like a porcelain figurine once shattered and glued back together?

Alura reached out, tracing fingers under her toes and up, over her anklebones and through the cleft of her calf. Her fingertips tickled the insides of her knees, and Alex spread her legs, involuntarily. Alura slid forward, dropping onto her knees, or, perhaps, hovering right above the floor, and let her hands continue over Alex's thighs and then under, gripping her ass and lifting her, bringing her forward.

Alura's mouth pressed against her, rubbing through the rough nest of hair, lower lip dragging through wetness, the tip of her tongue sneaking out to tease, and Alex gasped, her back arching, her knuckles going white as she clung to the edge of the desk. Alura's tongue, strong as an iron bar, penetrated her.

Alex arched, held firmly in a gentle grasp, fingers pressing against the bruises that marked her ass. Alura's deep thrusts became long strokes, becoming unpredictable swirls and spirals, and Alex sobbed and begged, and then gulped, gasping as the stroke hit just right, and she came, and Alura parted her further, rubbing her face along Alex's cunt, smearing it with cum, and again entering her, taking her, sucking and probing, just skimming with her teeth, and Alex came again and again until her arms were jelly and buckled under her. She thumped down hard on her back onto the scrolls and other objects still on the desk and Alura's fingers pushed inside her, sudden, quick and rough, and she came again, flailing for purchase, scrolls tumbling off the desk and paper and pens going flying.

Three fingers still buried inside her, Alura rose up, scooping her off the desk and moving her over to the bed. She turned her, laying her on her stomach, and nudged her knees apart. Then slow and steady she started to move her fingers, drawing them gently out until only her fingertips spread Alex's passage, and then driving deep. Alex groaned at each knuckle, until the mass of her hand was nestled against damp flesh. Alura spread her fingers, then crooked them slightly, and drew out, and then fucked her again and again, until Alex was a spilled heap on the mattress. The last orgasm was small and Alex sighed it out, face buried into the pillows, and Alura drew her drenched fingers out, stroking them across her inner thigh.

She leaned over to draw a blanket across the girl's naked body, and brushed a kiss on her shoulder. "You're such a good girl, Alex." And Alex softly sighed again, giving off the scent of fresh release.

Two hours later, Astra got home and stuck her head in the door. Eyebrows high she glanced from Alura at her desk, to Alex, still sleeping. Not saying a word, Astra made a _very serious_ face at Alura. Alura offered a cool, closed mouth smile, and Astra grinned, shaking her head. She waved a hand in dismissal and quietly shut the door. Alura smirked to herself and went back to work.

#


	8. Challenge

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh man, everyone was like, ooh, we're looking forward to smut, and I was like, SH*T, I don't have any proper 3way smut! And so I was like, time to write the smut! And then I was like, oh no. This is not a good chapter. So I went running and figured out what was wrong and possibly how to fix it. So, yay, Christmas day = frantic rewriting, (this was a good way to spend it) and I still haven't gotten to the smut!
> 
> At least one more chapter after this. (This was not supposed to turn into an epic. Aggh.) You can def tell that this was supposed to be the wrap up, but nooo. More plot = more excuses for the smuttiness.

A few months after Lucy came to live with them, there was a picnic at the new installation that Alura had helped design. Kryptonian and human families had been living there, intermixed in ways that they hoped would not feel like prisoners and guards. Interested council members had been invited to see for themselves how things were getting on.

Lucy had recently gotten out of her cast, astonishing Kara with how skinny and weak her arm had become. Kara appointed herself in charge of diet and therapy. She had decided that Alex's lab was her favorite place to be and pressed Lucy into being her subject for studies in human physiology.

Lucy, who had settled into life in the In-Ze household quite comfortably once she could walk again, was sarcastic about it, but she put up with the prodding and on the whole, she and Kara got on. Besides Kara and Alex, Lucy, who had experienced far more of the ways human lived after the war than Alex, also spent time with Alura, talking about what she'd seen and experienced, and what changes might be useful. 

When the picnic was announced, the whole household went.

Jor El and his toddler Kal met them as they landed. His eyes fell on Alex and Lucy, and he huffed a small sigh. But it was only about propriety, since he had long since gotten used to Lucy, who was always dragged along when Kara went to visit her cousin.

"Try not to draw too much attention to yourself," Astra told Kara. "Play like a human child.

Lucy snorted. "There's no way Kara could play like a human child."

"I so can!"

"I bet you can't! I bet two weeks dish-drying that you can't!"

"You're on!"

They scampered toward a rather dramatic climbing area, Kara running just like a human child, except for the fact that the grass didn't bend where she stepped. It wouldn't matter too much if she did fly, this was one of the few places where Kryptonian children and human children did play together.

Still, everyone here knew who Alura was, and though things seemed to be working out, there was always someone who might be less than happy. It was better to keep things quiet.

Alura watched as Alex considered the awkward gathering of Kryptonian and human adults, drinking carefully labeled mixtures of things that would get them just slightly drunk. a.k.a. punch and then considered the climbing structure. Clearly the climbing structure--incredibly tall with a deficit of railings--looked much less unpleasant, and Alex waved and jogged after Lucy and Kara. Alura suspected that Astra, easily bored of diplomacy, would join them in a few minutes.

Alura moved through the crowd, seeing moments of concord that warmed her heart and moments of discord that spurred thoughts of change. The work was not finished, by any means, nothing was solved. But perhaps this was the solid foundation from which they could move forward. When the base rocked, nothing could be built. It needed shoring up, but it was always a surprise what would stop the tipping and rocking.

Ending a discussion with an aggressively terrier-like human representative of the community by capitulating to rather more than she had expected, Alura went to find something to drink that was not the Kryptonian-style punch. She spied Astra glaring daggers into a particularly irritating councilman, her eyes beginning to sizzle with heat.

«Astra,» Alura twitched her fingers, calling her over. On her other side was Jor El, trying to balance an adventurous Kal with a cup of punch--a skill even the new Kryptonian powers did not provide. «Don't kill councilman Stor,» she whispered into her ear, and Astra huffed a small laugh. «In fact, go take Kal and bring him to the girls to play. If anyone is desperate to see you, I can always pretend you're me.»

Astra smiled and shook her head. «That hasn't worked since we were thirteen.»

«I have secret abilities.»

«I'll believe that.» 

Astra stole Kal and swooped off toward the climbing structure. She dropped Kal in the sand pit and flew up to where Alex was stalled, halfway up the outside of one of the turrets. She snagged Alex under her arms and tossed her up to the next hold. Alex yelled, caught it, and swung out, landing a foot right in Astra's gut as she came in too close.

Alura shook her head.

Jor El offered her a fresh cup of punch and frowned at the direction of her gaze. «I suppose this new set up wasn't a complete disaster,» he grumbled.

«No,» Alura said, surreptitiously tipping the purple liquid into the dirt and grimacing as it hissed and killed a dandelion. She did not care whether he was talking about the installation or her family life. «I wouldn't call it a disaster at all.»

There was a loud yelp and Lucy plummeted from an overhang. Something egg-shaped and glistening shimmered out around her. Kara swooped in and snagged her, dropping down onto the woodchip covered ground.

"Don't do that! That's dangerous!"

Lucy was laughing. "Got you! You can't fake being a human for ten minutes!"

"That's not fair! You could have been hurt! That doesn't count as playing!"

"You know I had my shield. I'm _fine_."

"It still hurts when you fall with the shield!"

"You're just mad because I tricked you!"

"Just see if I ever save you again!"

Jor El looked at Alura. «What _was_ that?»

«It's some technology Alexandra has been developing. A thought shield. Strong enough to ward off an unintended heat vision blast or other Kryptonian strike.»

«A weapon.»

«Purely defensive. I'm considering supplying one to every child in a mixed school once it gets out of beta, Kryptonian and human alike. You know how unpredictable children just coming into their powers can be.»

Jor El frowned. Kal had put holes in all his robes when he'd come into his heat vision early. «I do. And you say Alex developed it?»

«Contrary to popular opinion, Jor El, humans may be weaker and less powerful than we are under their yellow sun, but they are no less intelligent. As is the same for all of us, we only reveal our full potential when we have a chance to try.»

#

Alex was not feeling that she was revealing her full potential at this point, because Astra had decided that she was going to go through the paired training forms at the very top of the climbing structure. (Kryptonians had to have designed this for flying children, because the height of it was absurd.)

Paired forms were difficult enough without having a plummet on every side, and Astra did not match her speed, but pushed it, changing tempo and rhythm to mimic a real fight rather than a meditative practice.

Alex blocked and dodged and sidestepped until she'd fallen into the headspace where there was nothing but bodies and motion. She evaded, countered, brought in her knee, and then struck, one two, to land a gutpunch solidly enough that Astra slipped, missing the edge of the structure, and Alex, unbalanced, yelped and fell off. Astra snagged her shirt as she went past and Alex flailed, hanging from the sleeves, the hem riding up her stomach.

«Hey! Put me down! Down.»

Astra laughed and jerked the shirt, making her bob up and down. «I'm enjoying the view.»

Alex scrabbled in the air, trying to swivel enough to snag Astra's arm. She would haul herself right up onto Astra's back if she could just grab--

«Ahem.»

Two Kryptonians in uniform floated in the air beside them. «Please put the human down,» one said.

«This sort of bullying behavior is prohibited in this community,» added the other.

Astra stared at them. «You're serious?»

That tone was not a good sign. Alex got enough momentum to pivot, reach up and snag Astra's wrist. "Down," she hissed.

Astra floated downward, the other two Kryptonians following until four pairs of feet landed on the ground. «Do you know who you are speaking to?»

The younger looking one swallowed. «Yes, General Astra. But we must insist.»

Astra pulled Alex into her chest, one hand on her head, pushing it down and into her shoulder. «And you are telling me how to treat _my_ human?»

«Human ownership has been prohibited since the third injunction. If you are admitting to criminal behavior, we must take you in.»

«Wait,» Alex protested. The tightness of the grip on her head was not a good sign at all.

«Please release the human and give us your hands.»

Alex broke out and stepped between them. «Hey, don't do that. You don't need to do that.»

The Kryptonians didn't even look at her. «Some civilians reported an extended period of harassment, and if you admit that you treat this human as a belonging--»

Astra's vision began to bubble red. «You children have all been infected with Alura's idiotic ideas of correct--»

"Shut up!" Alex stuck a hand in her chest and glared at the Kryptonians. «And you! If you are so concerned about human rights why don't you listen to what they have to say! I'm fine! I am not being bullied! Astra doesn't--» _own me?_ Did she? That had been legal, hadn't it? Why did the idea it might not be anymore make her stomach hurt? «No one is treating me in any way that I don't want or like.»

One of the Kryptonians patted her shoulder. «Do not be concerned. You will be out of this soon enough.»

«I don't want to be out of this!»

«Excuse me.» Alura appeared, looking windblown from great speeds. «It seems there is some misunderstanding. Alex is a member of our house. It is all perfectly in order. My sister has simply forgotten the difference between appropriate public behavior and appropriate private behavior.» She glared at Astra who glared back. «If you would like to submit a report I would be happy to evaluate it. But please listen to Alex when she tells you that she is a consenting adult.»

«I apologize, Lady Representative, but according to my mandate, I must--»

«Rao save me from pedants and penpushers!» Astra snapped. «As far as I know life for blood is still a truth of Kryptonian Law and by that rule, if none other, this is my human, and if you lay a hand on her it is also my right to murder you where you stand, fool. As I shall do if you do not leave me be!»

Her eyes glowed hot.Red spilled from them.

«Wait!» Alex stepped forward and the beam struck her. Her shield rippled, juddering, the angry burst splitting and enveloping the electric blue shield with heat.

Then it was gone. Everyone was staring.

Alex's breath squeaked high up in her head. "Okay. Beta test successful." Her knees buckled.

Before she hit the ground, Astra scooped her into her arms, looping behind her shoulders and under her knees drawing her close to her chest.

"Are you all right? Please tell me if you are hurt."

"Fine. I'm fine." Alex wasn't entirely sure if that was true. She couldn't feel her feet. Her fingers weren't usually so tingly.

Astra pressed a kiss to the top of her head and pushed her into Alura's arms. She held out her hands, palms up, to the Kryptonian guards. «I apologize for the trouble I have caused. Please do what you must.»

#

Kara had taken Alex's temperature three times and put an icepack on her head before Astra got home. Alex was fine. She'd repeatedly been fine. It had just been a little shocking to have her shield suddenly glow red with explosive heat. Kara finally agreed and ran off to fight with Lucy.

Alex was curled up on the couch when the door opened. Astra stood framed by the sunset. She didn't come inside, just watched. Alex raised a hand and waved slightly. "You're not imprisoned?"

Astra snorted. "Paperwork and a small fine. Alura's bureaucrats are toothless."

The door snapped shut behind her.

Alex sighed and dropped the icepack into a dish. She rubbed her forehead. It was hard to think of anything to say. Good? I'm glad you're back? I'm glad I'm not dead? For all they'd fought, Astra had never been angry enough at her to wipe her out with heat vision. She'd just been angry at another Kryptonian. If Alex hadn't built the shield, it would have killed her anyway.

"You do know, I hope, that if you wish to leave, at any point, we will make certain you can leave safely and find a place where you will be happy."

Alex's head jerked up. "What?"

Astra's mouth pinched in annoyance. "I was informed that although blood ownership is still legal, the ownership it entails is circumscribed by all of the other rights given to Kryptonians, and that technically, it only applies to Kryptonian members of high houses, so either it does not apply for you or you are, ex post facto, a member of a Kryptonian high house."

Alex felt her heart sink. She swallowed. This wasn't-- she didn't want this.

"I apologize for losing my temper." Astra was staring at her own hands. "I was treating you poorly and with disregard."

"Shut up," Alex hissed.

Astra finally looked at her. She said nothing, just as asked, this time. That was worse than anything.

"It was fine. I was fine. They were--" Alex swallowed down the choking feeling in her throat. "It wasn't any of their business."

Astra huffed out a breath and dropped onto the sofa beside her. "Good. I am glad you think so. Because if you ever do try to leave again, _especially_ without telling anyone, I will actually hunt you down and kill you."

Alex let out a small, choked laugh. Comfort eased the strain in her chest.

"Come here." Astra opened her arms and waited for Alex to crawl into them. Then she closed them around her, drawing her in tight. "I am glad your shield worked. If I hurt you, I don't want to be out of control when I do it."

Alex rested her head on her shoulder and leaned in, smelling the traces of the new citadel on her skin. "That shouldn't make me feel better."

"Why not? It was meant to."

Alex had chosen this, not just when the outside world was so much worse, not just when she could not bring herself to leave. But having to see it as a choice, to know she could come and go--that  _they_ could come and go--she didn't want that. Better to be a possession than a person. A person could be told to leave and expected to handle it, but a possession had to be disposed of, its fate decided.

She had already lost everything once. She'd didn't think she could recover from having it ripped away again. "They couldn't make me leave, could they? They didn't listen when I said I was fine."

"If they try to take you away, it won't be a warning shot, and I won't miss." Astra's fingers tangled in her hair and tugged lightly. "A whole world surrendered before me, two officious Kryptonians were never an issue. And you--" Her hand closed around the back of Alex's neck, firm, controlling, turning her to meet her eyes. "You are nothing. Even with your shield I could catch you and keep you no matter how you resisted or tried to escape."

Alex shuddered at the certainty in her voice. "You always know just what to say." A joke maybe, but no less true.

Astra laughed.

Alex lay her head in her lap, needing the closeness. She shouldn't need it. She shouldn't feel better when Astra said that she was a prisoner, told her that she could not escape this. The controlling grip on her neck, the locked iron of her arms, she could believe while they held her, though she knew it wasn't true, that no one could take this away.

It was weak, this fear of change, of the unknown, of living in the outside world, but with Astra's warm thigh under her cheek, her hand absently stroking in her hair, being weak didn't feel wrong.

#


	9. Negotiations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And it keeps getting longer. :/

«Alex can't stay in the front room anymore.»

Astra tensed. Alura stood in the entrance to the kitchen, blocking the route in and out.

«No welcome home?»

Alura crossed her arms, a frown drawing a line across her forehead. «Why have you never had a sense of propriety?»

Astra glared. She had expected Alura to come bail her out, or at least to pull strings, but no. She had been left to handle the irritating bureaucrats alone. «Why are you a decorum robot? I cannot be something other than I am.»

«That isn't the point. I am only trying to make certain we do not have an incident like this again!»

«And your answer is to kick Alex off her couch?» None of this was making any sense.

«If visitors come, they walk straight into her bedroom.» Alura pressed her lips. « _People_  do not sleep on the sofa. They can tell how you treat her.»

«She likes to be treated like that. You should have seen her face when I told her she could leave if she wanted.» Astra could feel the snarl held behind her teeth. She had spent hours dealing with annoyances because some people could not mind their own business. She would not accept this sort of censure in her own home.

«That is not the point. We at least need to maintain the public fiction that she isn't a pet.  _I_ need to. You may gain political capital by being cavalier in this way, but I cannot risk the progress I am making.»

«You fuck her too.»

Alura's face went white. «I know that.»

Astra smirked. «Isn't the taste of hypocrisy lovely? I suppose you're used to it by now.  _Politicians_ _._ »

«Whether or not I've touched her has nothing to do with anything. This isn't about  _you_  either. It is not about how I reacted when rumors of your licentious behavior returned from interplanetary operations. Nor is it about what I said when you didn't deny them.»

«I had nothing to be ashamed of.» There were memories that she didn't need to recall. Krypton was gone and those times were long past. But forgiveness? No. Especially now, when Alura's tune was sung in a new key, there would be no forgiveness for what had happened.

«I  _know_. I am  _sorry_. But I cannot change what I have done. I can only change what is yet to happen. You may have escaped serious repercussions this time, but your freedom and Alex's maintained presence are not the only things at risk. You know this was a ploy. I have rivals, and coming after me--using my own words to attack my family, it's obvious. I cannot have this kind of vulnerability!»

«Then why not get rid of us! If Alex and I and Lucy and even Kara are a hindrance to your political career--»

«I have no career,» Alura snapped. «I nearly lost you when I chose my ambition over my sister. I have lost my husband and my planet and my self-respect. I value what I can do, what possible amends I can make to this world. But I will not lose any of you. Not if I can help it.» Alura sighed, pulling out her clip, letting her hair fall over her face. «At the very least, she needs a real bed.»

Astra crossed her arms. She did not want to let Alura's vulnerabilities make her soft. «She sleeps in yours often enough. I hung a hammock for her in her lab. And a bed in the front room isn't going to help with people wandering into her space and wondering what she's doing there. Not that if they are curious there would be any way to stop them from watching or listening to whatever goes on here.»

«There is at least a moral high ground of not spying on what goes on in others' bedrooms. And, well, you don't use your room to its fullest extent.»

«You want to give her  _my_  room?»

«You have a hammock and a footlocker. It is the master bedroom and you use two square meters of it. It did have a bed. But you said it smelled like human and burned it with your heat vision.»

«It did.»

Alura pushed her hair away from her face. «Think about it. Alex, in a bed, in a private room, just there, whenever you want her.»

Astra laughed. She hadn't expected that move. But of course, it was Alura. She never avoided a tactic that might give her an advantage. «I always heard you were a great debater, but this is a new low. Putting Alex away in a little private space. Lead paint on the walls. A place for everything and everything in its place, just like you tell Kara. Following your own advice, I see.»

«I don't understand why you are resisting this. There is no cost to it. If you want a bed big enough so you can sleep with her, I have no objection. If you want to construct arcane perverted apparatus to tie her to, I will not say no. What else do you do with that cavern of a room?»

Astra sealed her mouth. «I mourn there.»

Alura's exasperated expression fell away. She sighed. «I see. Very well, then. We will have to decide on something else. Perhaps a screen.»

She'd given up? Astra breathed out. «No. No. It is a good idea.»

Alura stilled. «You're considering it?»

The appearance of propriety was not something Astra had ever been interested in, not at least since the rumors had started that ruined her reputation. After that, propriety itself was unimportant. If people said you were doing something, you might as well try it. That would impress a different group of people, and in the army they were the important ones.

But Alex deserved more than a heap of blankets on a couch. Still, putting her in a room was a delicate question, particularly after today. How would she take it? A permanent place, but also the kind of respect, a symbol of autonomy, that could leave her feeling untethered. More overt tethers could, perhaps, solve that.

«Yes.»

Alura reached out, tracing her fingers down Astra's cheek, and then across her lower lip. The touch was not wholly unwelcome, but it felt like a brand on skin sensitized from arguing. «Thank you for accepting this.»

«Not for you. For Alex.»

#

Alex had been noticing the arguing and the thumps from upstairs for a while, but she was busy fine tuning some of the specs for her shield, and stayed where she was on her couch, feet tucked under her, scroll open to rotate the 3-D model of the crystal emitter.

Lucy and Kara were over at Jor El's again, which had gotten less weird lately--or perhaps more. Jor El seemed to have decided that Lucy wasn't just an irritating and poorly chosen plaything, and had started teaching her about the history and theory of the scientific oligarchy that had governed Krypton. This was driving Alura crazy, and to counter his influence, Lucy was being given far more political theory homework than most kids would ever want. Kryptonians were weird about committing someone to a career track, but if they'd committed Lucy to poly-sci Lucy hadn't protested yet.

Footsteps on the stair and Alex knew it was Alura--who still bothered to walk places. Warm hands closed over her shoulders and a kiss was planted on the top of her head. «Busy?»

Alex turned her head to see her, Alura's fingers trailed through her hair and the next kiss landed on her cheek. «Not really.»

«Good.»

«You smell like paint.» Alex loved this, when the force of Alura's affection was directed overwhelmingly at her.

Alura let a rumble of a laugh emerge in her throat. «Astra threw some at me.»

«You've been fighting a lot lately.»

«It's not abnormal. I suspect that your impression of our relationship was inaccurate.»

«Which one?» Alex threaded her fingers through her hair. «The one where you never made eye contact when you spoke to each other, or the one where you stayed a good five feet apart at all times?»

«There were a few good months.» Alura shook her head and rubbed her thumbs over Alex's ears. Alex was never quite sure about this, but it seemed to be something Alura liked, the brush of skin on skin. «I have done things to her I cannot make up for.»

Alex hesitated, but it felt like an invitation. «Like what?»

«I forbade her to see Kara.»

«What? When?»

«Shortly after she was born. There were rumors, I was . . . more concerned with their reflection on me than on how she might feel, having her private life so discussed. Eventually I could not-- manage without her. But trust has been in short supply since.»

«I can see why.» If Alex had to rank the most important people to Astra, there was no question that Kara came first. This fissure between the sisters made her uncomfortable. They had to stay together. If they decided to live apart, what would happen to her? Where would  _Kara_  go?

«I will not make the same mistakes again. I do not deserve her, but I cannot--»

Alex reached up and caught her face between both hands. «Why is it easier to tell me this than her?»

Alura breathed out. «I already know the depth of your forgiveness.»

«Maybe you could try hers.»

#

Twins were not the norm on Krypton. Before the Codex they had been seen as special, bound together in a way that was unnatural and necessary. If they were parted for too long they would die. They were truly only a single person in two bodies. Other nonsense about telepathy and prophetic abilities. After the Codex they were a dangerous aberration. There had been enough vague and unstated disapproval, that when finally Alura had managed to acquire the position that she desired, she could hardly believe her work had paid off.

And then the rumors began. They were rumors about Astra, who had always been wilder, or, well, had taken the fall for both their wild ways. Rumors that on her training trips to other planets she had partaken of the brothels, of the strange hallucinogens, of the foul pleasures of their slums. Alura heard the whispers, saw the looks. What applied to one twin applied to the other. She showed no outward sign of debauchery, so the rumors became even viler.

Alura had to stop them before she lost everything. So she had taken drastic action. She and Astra were not the same person. They would not die if parted. She had told Astra to go, to stop bringing shame on her, to stay away from her daughter. It was only later that Alura discovered the source of the rumors was one of her own rivals, targeting her from an angle. It was only later that the pain and stress of not having Astra near was too much to bear. By then Astra had built her own reputation on truth. She tasted of foreign pleasures and returned, vibrant and alive and strong. By then, Alura could not care at all. They made amends.

What was a relationship besides a hundred unburied slights disguised by recent laughter? If there was not enough laughter, the slights would rise and begin to burn.

Astra had been slowly seething since the incident at the picnic, and Alura knew she could not mend it, could not do anything but listen to Alex's advice and ask for forgiveness. But admitting her weaknesses always burned, and could an apology ever be enough?

The room changed, Astra moving her hammock to the attic, her footlocker shoved into the back of the closet. New paint, new light. If it was for Alex, Astra would do anything. Alura wondered if she should feel jealous at that, but no. She was only as jealous of Astra's love for Alex as she was for her love for Kara, which was to say, not at all. The bitterness in her heart was simply that she did not deserve the same sort of pure affection, that after a few months where touches were given and received as if they were a certainty, now she could only brush against Astra's skin with hesitation.

But at least this room project allowed them time to spend together. They wandered the wares of Kryptonian craftspeople, considering the options.

«So, a bed.» Astra gave her a wry look, one that clearly said, this is where all this started. «You did steal my room for this, so I suppose you can't protest if I push for one large enough to sleep in with her without having to get all too close up.»

«Please,» Alura said. «I could never stop you from being a limpet back before we were married.»

It was a calculated blow. It had been different back then. Above anyone, Astra had been the person most important to her. They had slept in the same bed, spoke with hardly any words, enjoyed an intimacy--mental and physical and emotional--that had not been replicated by anyone.

«Well, you won't have to put up with it.»

Alura shrugged. «If the bed was big enough, you could cling to who you liked.»

Astra's brow furrowed. «Big enough? Big enough for you? For three? At once?»

«Why not? No one is on a hammock or a sofa.»

Astra looked appalled. «You're serious?»

«Why not?»

Astra settled her hands onto her hips.«I'm going to fuck her in that bed.»

Alura shrugged. This was the point. She wanted to make it clear that this was not something she was offended by, not anymore.«So am I.»

Astra never showed agitation except in anger, but now she was clearly trying not to fidget. «And yet, you would sleep there?»

«I may have been short-sighted before, overly concerned with propriety. But I never thought less of you for your choices. I chose to abandon you and save myself. It was a mistake. I hope I am not the same person, I hope I would never hurt you in the same way again.»

Astra narrowed her eyes.«Has Alex rubbed off on you enough to rub off your Kryptonian prudery?»

Alura sighed. She had missed the point again.«My response was not due to prudery.»

«No? So you were interested in those animalistic alien urges?»

«I may have been curious.»

«You always were secretly wicked.» Astra reached out, prodding her in the chest.«But how curious? How not prudish are you? I've seen how sweet Alex is for you. That's no test. I could show you something else with her body.» She bared her teeth in a challenge.«Why not? We're buying a bed for three. Let's plan to break it in together?»

«Together?» Alura waved a hand between them. «Together together?»

«You're the one who suggested sleeping all in a heap. If you'd sleep there while I'd strip her down and have my way with her, I don't see the problem with having one go and taking turns. Privacy is a bit of a futile hope when everyone has x-ray vision.»

«It is a bit beyond what I suggested . . .» She'd wanted to say, 'I accept all of you.' 'I need all of you.' 'Nothing you could do could make me reject you again.' She hadn't intended to say I would like to  _watch_  all of you enjoy all of the things you enjoy. But if anything would convince her, that would. Perhaps it would be worth the embarrassment.

«You like the idea, don't you?»

Alura crossed her arms in front of her. Why would she say that? But she thought of it-- Not looking away from the black fatigues and trimly cut military jacket that Astra wore, she moistened her lower lip. They already shared Alex. Perhaps it would be pleasant to  _share_  Alex.

Astra stared. «I know that expression. It's the same as when I asked you to break into the Codex, and when I asked you to invert the gravity matrix in mom's council chamber before that stuffy meeting, and when I asked you to swap places with me on the double  _omiai_ , to see if Zor could tell. It means you're game.»

Alura let the false modesty drop. If she'd reminded Astra of that, she'd done enough. They'd had a bond once, stronger than with anyone else. And it was true, she would do anything to heal it. Even this. «Perhaps you're the one who won't dare?» She raised an eyebrow. «Are you afraid that for all your practice, you will not stand up to comparison?»

Astra glowered.«Try me.»

«As you wish.»

#

 


	10. Reunification

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I dropped off the radar for two days, 'pologies. But I am back! 
> 
> I was working on this next part the whole time, and figured it's going to be as long as 3 chapters, so I hope it is as satisfying. 
> 
> Here comes the 6-7000 word final(?) installment which I will be posting in chunks for ease of reading as soon as I get the bits edited. 
> 
> Here is pt 1.

Alex was long past curious as to what Astra and Alura were doing up in Astra's bedroom. She'd landed fully in anxious territory. Whenever she wandered nearby she got shooed away, and when she enlisted Kara in satisfying her curiosity, she was again stymied. "I think they used lead paint. I can't see past the walls."

This was disconcerting.

Worse was the tension that hadn't let up since the picnic incident still lingering in the house. The stress in Alura's shoulders as she went about her work, a new reserved formality, even the gentle touches on her arm were often followed by a frown cast in the direction of her couch. Alex made sure to fold the blankets every morning and pile Kara's stray stuffed animals neatly on the seat, but it didn't stop the looks.

Astra had decided that she needed even more intensive training, and Alex's legs and core ached after each session. She didn't treat Alex any differently, but the coldness and reserve she had around Alura was even making Kara uncertain.

And after finding out what had gone down between the sisters back on Krypton, it made her uncomfortable to see Alura watching Astra and Kara. What was she thinking? She didn't let it show on her face, but if she caught Alex looking she'd offer a tight smile as if to someone who understood.

Even with Astra's reassurances, everything felt precarious.

Alex huddled under her blanket on the couch, going over her actions for the past few weeks, trying to figure out what she'd done or if there was anything she could have done differently. It felt irrational, but late at night it was hard to be rational. Whatever had happened, it was bigger than her. It was about what being a human in a Kryptonian house meant to other Kryptonians, about trust broken a long time ago. But she almost wished it could be her fault. If it was something she'd done, there might be something she could do to fix it.

The bitter taste of guilt lingered underneath. Why was she so scared? Why was she scared that Alura might decide she was too much trouble to have around, or that Astra might be unable to put up with her sister anymore and pack off somewhere? Why did any slight shift to the status-quo make her panic when she had never been this afraid she might lose her dad and her pre-invasion life?

But she hadn't known then. She hadn't known how easy it was to lose everything.

«Alex.» Alura called her from the stairs. «Are you busy?»

«No?» Alura had foregone her usual Kryptonian robes, wearing only the soft white linen pants and long-sleeved shirt that Alex had found her in the first time. Underthings, she knew now. That was another sight Alex hadn't seen since the picnic. Lately, Alura acted like they were being watched. And with Kryptonians around, that was a definite possibility. It had made Alex hesitant to touch or to ask for touch. _You're a dirty little human_ , she told herself. _If you weren't an animal you could control yourself._ But for a while it had been so good, and now everything was thinning and slipping away.

«Come up here, please.»

Alex padded up the stairs in her socks. Alura smiled at her when she reached the top and tugged at the collar of her lab coat, which she'd forgotten she was wearing over a t-shirt and jeans. Alex peeled it off and hung it over the bannister.

Alura guided her past her door and down the hall, past Lucy and Kara's room, to the entrance to the master suite. Surprised, Alex blinked at the freshly painted door.Was she actually going to be allowed to see inside? She hadn't really been in there before the noises had started. It had been mostly empty, a few trashed human things, a hammock and a foot-locker. Astra didn't seem to do anything but sleep there, when she managed to sleep. But she didn't know why both sisters had been so involved in working on whatever they were doing in there. It was another marker of the changes that had been going on. Alex crossed her arms over her chest and shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot.

Astra waited in the hall outside, leaning against the wall. Alex examined her for any indication of what was going to be revealed. She wore clean black fatigues, her hair damp and braided down her back, the blue paint that Alex had noticed speckled across her cheeks and streaked on her forearms, scrubbed off. She looked at Alex, inscrutable and flatly evaluating, and Alex straightened up, a little unsure of how to act with both Alura and Astra focusing on her. She had to be stronger around Astra, show she could take on whatever challenge, struggle against it until she broke it or it broke her, and then be strong in defeat. But with Alura it was the opposite--perhaps even more difficult--task of being open and quiet and honest.

Alura looped an arm through hers, her warmth pressing against her shoulder, making her want to be soft, to give in and love giving in. Astra took her free arm, firmly tugging her toward the door. The struggle, the tearing in her, to be what they both wanted all at once, shook her.

«If you hate it, it's fine. We know it's a bit selfish too.» Astra pushed open the door and led the way inside.

The room had been transformed. Dark blue and turquoise paint turned the walls and ceiling into the night sky, with stars and galaxies spattered across it. Alex gaped at the patterns she knew too well, from nights on her roof with her dad and his telescope, scanning the dome of heaven for everything from Venus all the way to Krypton.

And there was Krypton--or at least Rao, the red glow of it. All of the unbelievably endless scope of space, compressed onto these walls. The red glow locked her eyes, her dad's presence at her shoulder, pointing it out, telling her about the people, the science, the culture. Her fate had been bound to Krypton since then. In whatever way it would have turned out--she hadn't wanted it to be like this, not for herself, not for anyone--but it had always been inescapable, hadn't it?

Red stars were ill-omened, weren't they?

«So this is your room now.»

«My room?» She felt herself start to shake, glancing around the changed room. «I don't need a room. I'm fine. I--» She wasn't supposed to have a room. She slept on the couch, exposed and vulnerable, because she was a prisoner, because this was temporary, because she didn't belong here with them. She couldn't _keep_ this.

«You can't sleep on the couch. It's inappropriate.»

The Kryptonian guards, the way they had not even looked at her as they 'protected her rights', flashed in front of her eyes. If she couldn't sleep on the couch, what came with that? Would they keep telling her she could choose to leave until she felt too guilty to stay? Would they think it was better for her to be with her own kind? She didn't want to be pushed back to the other humans, no matter how much better things were now. She didn't want to be allowed to make choices, because she wasn't supposed to be here. She wasn't supposed to want this. Prisoners ran, and prisoners fought back, and if they told her they wouldn't track her down and bring her home, that meant she was supposed to leave. If she didn't leave when she knew she could, what kind of human was she?

But she didn't want to lose this.

«You can't-- you can't give this to me. If you give things to me, they can be taken away. It can all just be gone, and I--»

«Shh.» Alura's hand closed over her mouth, a firm pressure, stifling the words. Her body was like iron bars behind her, blocking any chance of escape.

Astra moved to the outside of the door. «Don't get the wrong idea. This is your room, but if you're looking for privacy or solitude, go to your lab.»

She locked the door from the inside and then took hold of the outer handle. She turned it until the lock crunched, breaking, a creak of metal and a sad sigh of springs. She smiled and shut the door behind them. Alex stared at the broken doorhandle.

«We are putting you here, because we want you here. Not because we thought you might want to be here or because we think you 'deserve' to be here, or any sort of respect nonsense. This is our house, and you belong to it.»

Alex gulped in a breath from behind the heat of Alura's hand, her arms still shaking a little.

«Also, lead paint is the undercoat. Don't breathe here if someone crashes through the wall. Again, this is not about your privacy.» Astra moved closer and tapped the tip of her nose. «It just means that no one can see what we do to you in here.»

Okay. Okay. It was enough reassurance so Alex could breathe. The breaking of the lock was pretty dramatic. Very Astra. Alura squeezed her shoulder and let her hand slip away from her mouth. Alex took a second look around.

The room had been furnished, bookshelves, a bureau, and a comfortable chair by the heavily curtained windows. It looked like a place she'd like to be. And as long as it wasn't outside her cage, she could even let herself enjoy it. Her eyes slipped to the side.

Alex blinked. «That is the biggest bed I have ever seen.»

«Yes, well.» Astra grinned and Alura squeezed her arm. «We're expecting you to share.»

«Oh.» Alex looked at both of them. _Both_ of them. « _Oh_.»

The anger and tension between them seemed to settle in this room. Had this been one of the things they were fighting about? But the compromise between them showed in every part of this. Alura had been pushing to get her out of the front room, making sure she was comfortable, and not a liability. Astra understood how that would make her feel. The broken door, the harsh reminders that she belonged to them, were a lifeline in this sea of change.

Both of them had worked on this. Alex's throat closed. They'd been sorting out how to deal with her, what to do with her. But instead of using her as an excuse to fight more and split farther apart, they'd offered her something together.

Astra turned on two lights, one on each side of the huge bed. They glowed muted and red. The windows had all been covered.

«If you had come to Krypton,» Alura said, soft, «Instead of us coming here. This is what the light would have been like, from Rao.»

«It has a similar effect to Kryptonite,» Astra said. «Weaker, but also no radiation poisoning.»

Alex swallowed. The Kryptonite only came out when Astra wanted to fuck her without worrying about holding back. She'd thought maybe they'd just keep going the way they had been behind these new lead-coated walls, each of them taking what they wanted from her when they felt like it. But _both_ of them, at the same time? They couldn't be serious.

The lamps made it all feel very serious.

«So you don't _want_ to kill me.» Alex felt her face glowing with heat.

«Only a little death,» Alura murmured into her neck. «Or perhaps a thousand.»

Her steady presence was warm up against Alex's back, and Astra moved to her front, pausing just close enough to stroke her finger over Alex's lower lip.

Alex's knees buckled, and Alura's arms looped around her, holding her up, pulling her tightly into her body, heat and flesh molding to her back side. Astra cupped her face, lifting her chin, tucking back her hair. Her eyes, so chill and uncanny, did not blink, did not look away, did nothing to break the seriousness of this moment.

She belonged to the house of In-Ze. And the house was going to take her.

«Let's break you in.»

Alex's breath stopped. She couldn't move, couldn't think. Astra slid her hands down her arms and took Alex's elbows, guiding her hands to rest on her waist. Alex clung to the thin black tanktop, tugging just enough that Astra got the hint and stepped closer, pushing her hips flush against Alex's. Astra tight to her front and Alura hot against her back, their bodies buttressing her, overwhelmed her.

It was enough pressure that Alex didn't have to stand, didn't have to do anything but say, «Please.»

#


	11. Revelations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm gonna have to change the tagsssss.
> 
> Part 2 of 3! 
> 
> (lol, this scene isn't even over yet)

Dim red light and shadows were all Alex could see when she opened her eyes. She scrunched them shut again, even that much visual input more sensation than she could take. Alura's mouth was gentle, soft, pressing open on the back of her neck, trailing her tongue teasingly through the swirls of short hair. She nipped some between her teeth and tugged at it, and Alex moaned.

Alex scuffled at Astra's tanktop, sliding it up and soothing her hands against hot skin. Astra's mouth was at her throat, rough, fast, biting, sucking at her pulse point, nipping at her jaw. Her hands held Alex's hips firmly, making it impossible to jerk them forward and grind against her.

It was too much, too many hands and mouths and nerve endings, and a tangled burning feeling throbbed in her core. Her breasts rubbed against Astra's and she felt the hard press of nipples against her back. It was too much and not quite enough. She needed to be spread, bent over, taken. But she never wanted these soft, intense touches to end.

Teeth closed on her shoulder and Alex gasped. She struggled against Astra's grip. Alura's arms tightened around her chest and her breath came short and ragged. «I need-- I need . . .»

«What do you need?» Alura murmured. The vibration of her voice against Alex skin only made it worse, made her wetter and more sloppily, desperately human.

« _Please_.»

«You don't think you'll get to come this soon?» Astra whispered into a slick patch on her neck. «We're taking our time with you.»

«No. _N_ _o_. I don't want to come.» _Not yet_. That wasn't what she wanted. That would be a gift, coming too soon, too easy. She needed them to wait, she needed it to be the last shame, the undeserved relief from punishment.

«Oh?» Alura's amusement shot right to her gut. «You don't, do you?»

And she could see the glance over her shoulder, Astra's mouth quirking in to a grin. And then Astra's knee was between her legs and Alura's hand cupped her from behind, the heel rubbing against the back pockets of her jeans, curled fingers riding into the apex of the seam that ran up the insides of her thighs.

Alex gasped, unable to keep herself from rutting against Astra's thigh. The pressure from behind moved at its own rhythm, a counterpoint, not building. It was too much, too desperate, and Alex ground helplessly against Astra's leg, keening at every slight change in the pressure of Alura's fingers.

But it was the glance that made her chest go tight, her breath catching in her throat. Two pairs of cool eyes meeting, a mirrored reflection, both planning just what to do with her. The distance that had separated them was gone.

«Do you want both of us?»

«Mhmm,» Alex whimpered.

«How do you want us? You want us to hold you down, hold you open, both of us fucking you at once.»

Astra's hands had clamped down again on her hips, breaking the rhythm, not letting her come. And that thought, the thought of being pinned, knees spread, one hand on her throat, another over her mouth, forced open by too many fingers--it would have been enough, she _knew_ it would have been enough. But they were only tempting her. She wasn't going to come so soon or so easily.

« _Please_.» It was begging now, the choke in her throat, a half sob at the end of the word. «I want that. I want-- I want to drown in you.»

«Hmm?»

«I want you to ride me. I want both of you to ride my face until I can't see or breathe because you've come so much.»

A sudden stop, Alura's hand flinching away from her. A moment later, Astra's grip slammed shut like an iron door, halting the desperate thrusting of her hips. Bruises would bloom, leopard print fingermarks. Why were they stopping? Had she ruined it? Shit. Alex wanted to cry from this. What had she said?

«Have you?» Alura's voice murmured the words softly, asking-- asking Astra.

Alex hung limp, sweating, her jeans soaked through. She hadn't even come yet.

She felt Astra give a slight nod. «I like it when she touches me.»

What had it been, twice, that Alex had managed to get her fatigues down and her mouth there, as Astra had used her hair like reins, forcing her in and then, before Alex had tasted even close to enough of Kryptonian, had forced her away again? Was that wrong? Was she not supposed to have--

«I see.»

And then Alura's hand was cupping her ass, gentle against the curve of it, offering a light squeeze. She planted a light kiss on the back of Alex's ear. «Let's see how much we can give you of what you want.» Her hands tightened on Alex's butt. «Let's see how much of it you can take.»

Alex's knees went out again.

#

Astra reached out, catching Alex as she started to slump again, but she could not look away from Alura. What was this? She knew Alura was judging her. Whatever inhibitions her sister had overcome to make certain she could please Alex, there was no way she had gone so far as to let anyone touch her in return. That couldn't be rationalized away. Humans showed affection through physical intimacies, and it was only kind and accepting to help them achieve the release they desired, but Alura would say that Kryptonians were above that. For all the similarities in their bodies, Kryptonians had long since evolved beyond the biological, right?

Kryptonians were a bunch of hypocrites. Sex was like any pleasure, not strictly necessary, but once you realized that it was appealing, it was a temptation. She still longed for Altarian seed-puffs, for the crunch of them and the bursts of liquid flavor, and the scents that were heady and filled the brain with the sounds of colors and the colors of sounds. The drive for sexual release was no different. But for Alura, sex was something she gave, not something she shared. And if she thought less of Astra for taking her pleasure in it, she was the one missing out. Astra would not be shamed for it.

Alura reached for Alex's hands, drawing them away from where they clutched at Astra's bare skin, and tugging them behind her back.

«What are you--» Astra released Alex, stepping back and reaching up to untuck her shirt from where Alex had got it stuck under the band of her bra. But Alura's eyes had caught on her bare stomach.

Instead of pulling down her shirt, Astra let her hand trace up her own stomach, from the waistband of her combat trousers to the band of her bra, flexing to feel muscle tighten underneath the skin. Alura's eyes followed her hand.

«Alex,» Alura said, her voice soft, controlled, but also with an overtone of something unfamiliar, a purr, perhaps.

Alex let out a soft sound from where she was bent forward, half hanging from Alura's grip on her wrists.

«Take off Astra's top.»

Alex didn't even bother trying to tug against the hands that held her. She leaned forward pressing her mouth to Astra's bare stomach, kissing and licking at it. Astra forced herself to not shudder, to not show how the press of her mouth sent fire down all her nerves. But though the red lamps were dulling their senses, she knew Alura could still sense the increase in her heart-rate, the strain that kept her breathing at a single pace. Alex bit at the hem of the tanktop and tugged like a puppy at a toy.

Astra reached out, stroking Alex's hair, seeing in her eyes the distance from herself, the openness that overcame her when she was past the point of arousal, no longer needing to come, instead living enmeshed on the cusp of it.

Astra sank down to her knees and raised her arms, letting Alex drag the shirt off with her teeth.

«Bra now.»

Alex's mouth found her bra-straps, scraping the skin with her teeth and leaving streaks of spit as she dragged the straps down Astra's shoulders. Then, biting at the soft flesh at the tops of her breasts, she dragged down each cup until they came free. Astra unfastened the back herself, letting the bra fall away. Alex's teeth had left slight marks, indicating that the red sun lamps were working. Astra knelt there, exposed to Alex's mouth and Alura's eyes. It was nothing Alura hadn't seen before, nothing Astra could imagine interested her, but still she did not look away.

«Suck.»

And Alex, mouth open, sank onto Astra's breast, groaning as she drew it in. The suction, wet and rough, the vibration of the sound she made, it was too much. Astra felt the heat turn liquid between her legs. She reached for Alex, to draw her off.

«Don't touch her.» Astra froze at Alura's command. «Back up, grab the bedspread.»

Astra, still on her knees, shifted backwards until she hit the bed and reached behind herself to grasp the blanket. Alura, keeping Alex's wrists firmly restrained in one hand, took a fistful of Alex's hair and with a short jerk, made her release, then guided her to Astra's other breast. The fresh contact drew a ragged gasp from Astra's throat.

Bitterly, aching, Astra felt the bedspread tear under her grip, but only mildly. The lamps had sapped her strength, but not as much as the steady, half-curious expression on Alura's face. So pleased with herself, at every sound Astra could not restrain, pleased at having her under her control--controlling her through her weakness, through her lack of proper Kryptonian restraint. _Finally_ , she must be thinking, finally she could prove that Astra was the worse for it, the weaker twin, the filthy regressive embarrassment--

Alura released Alex's hair, and Astra saw her hand press one more time into Alex's inseam. Alex moaned, smearing hot wet saliva onto Astra's chest.

«Fuck,» Astra swore. «This isn't--»

«Take off her trousers,» Alura instructed, and Alex dove for the fastenings, smearing spit down Astra's stomach. Alura released her hands, and Alex had the trousers undone and down to her knees in seconds. Astra gripped the bed and glared, pushing her hips forward into Alex's face. Yes, she was wet, yes, she needed this. She hoisted herself up on the edge of the bed, picking up each foot in turn, and Alex drew the trousers the rest of the way down and off.

Once freed, her legs looped around Alex, ankles locking to thump heels into her back and draw her in, Alex's open wet mouth and her nose pressed against the damp crotch of her underwear.

«Not yet.»

Alura reached down and took hold of Astra's ankles. The touch, not Alex's hands, and yet hands damp with sweat, with _involvement,_ took her by surprise. And she did not resist when Alura pulled them apart.

«Alex. Strip.»

Alex scurried up, tugging her shirt over her head, dropping her trousers, and peeling off her bra and sticky underwear. Astra fought the grip on her ankles, the angle too awkward to do anything about it, and looked back and forth, mouth growing wet as Alex revealed her body. But the confusion mounted each time she caught sight of Alura, head tipped gently, watching the show with obvious pleasure and affection.

With a jerk of her legs, Astra called her attention. Alura's gaze fell onto her.

«I didn't realize how far you'd fallen,» Astra said, managing to gain enough control to not pant through the words. «You even want to fuck me. You're just using Alex as a go-between.»

Alex's eyes were wide, her mouth open, and she looked even more turned on than she had been a moment before.

«I've done what I want to do to you.» Alura said, loosing one of her ankles and leaning over her to trace a circle in the wet streak on Astra's stomach. «As I will continue to do. But Alex wants you to ride her face and I want to watch. I'm just making sure you're both ready.»

Alura dropped the other ankle and gestured Alex to her. Alex came, and Alura cupped her face and leaned in, taking her mouth, kissing her, open and wet until her lips were slick and swollen.

Astra dropped her head back and bit down hard on her own lip to make herself keep her hands clutching the bedspread and her legs open.

#

Alex's body, bare, only separated from her own by the thin linen undersuit, rubbed against her, Alex's mouth wet and pliant under her own. Alura let her hands roam, finding the textured scars, the scuffed skin of her elbows, and the soft, smooth hidden places that made her arch and gasp into Alura's mouth.

«Lie down, sweet-one.»

She guided Alex onto the bed, settling her there, lifting up her legs for her, and tucking pillows around her head. Alex moved when told, took guidance obediently rocking gently but not even squeezing together her glistening inner thighs. Alura settled over her hips, resting on her legs--spread just enough for a fist to fit between her knees. The scent of her rose up warm and rich and tempting.

She crooked her fingers at Astra.

«I don't want this.» Astra scowled.

That was an obvious lie. So stubborn. How could she get her beautiful sister to understand that she didn't need to be stubborn about this?

«Please.» It was Alex, and her hand groped out, catching Astra's thigh. «I need it.»

«And I want you to do it.» Alura settled more deeply onto Alex's legs. «Give her what she needs. Show me how.»

Astra stared until Alex's hand tangled in hers and pulled. She swallowed, then turned, rising onto her knees and bending over Alex, pressing kisses to her knuckles, then to her throat and up her cheek. As she watched this, an ache expanded in Alura's chest--warmth, pain, restraint--and spread through her, both numbing and heightening. She rocked against Alex's legs, and Alex tried to buck against her, tried until Astra swung over her head and shifted forward to let her hips hover over her face. Alex made a sound and tipped up her head to bite at the thin cloth.

Alura reached out and hooked her fingers in Astra's underwear. Astra gave her a sharp glance. Alura jerked. They tore, ripping away, until there was only skin. Alex pushed into her, and Astra's eyes rolled back, her head falling forward, as she gripped the blanket under her and released a shaky moan.

Alura trailed her fingers over Alex's breasts and belly, watching them divot the softness, dragging across the knot of scar tissue in her side. She bent down to suck at the flesh right below her bellybutton. Alex's hips jerked, and Alura held her waist, sucking and nipping, hearing her pant roughly between the sounds of wet seals breaking as she lapped into Astra. The scent of her arousal freshened and increased.

The sounds Astra made grew louder, deeper. Alex's fingers pushed inside her, along with her tongue. Alura's hand slid down, over Alex, letting her fingertips brush along the outside of Alex's lips, finding where wetness had already pooled out down low. She was probably supposed to look away, but it wasn't as if she didn't know Astra's body as well as her own, as if looking away wouldn't be another sign that she didn't accept this, didn't think this was something to be valued, not condemned. She stroked Alex, and watched Astra, loosened hair moving and splashing like waves, her arms flexing and releasing as she clung, her face lined with the struggle for control. Alex clung to her hips, so eager, so needy, as if she was compelled to drink all she could from this font, to glean its secret contents before it was gone.

Alura closed her hand into a fist, nestling it between Alex's legs, and Alex made an oofing sound, a muffled cry. Alura rolled up to trap her fist between their cores and ride against it, Alex's hips bucking against her knuckles. She felt Alex come, wet and quick, and then heard the sound that Astra made. She'd heard it before, not so loud or so long, but she knew it.

It pooled deep inside her and she let out her own choked off exhale.

Astra's eyes found her as she pushed back her sweaty hair, still stunned, still aching. She was so close, the length of Alex's spine separating them, close enough that if they both leaned forward, their lips could meet. A look rose in Astra's eyes, disbelieving, confused, but also almost like understanding. As if she knew this could not all be a lie.

Astra slid off of Alex and curled her arms protectively around her head, pressing kisses to her slick face, combing cum into her hair. «You liked that. You liked that didn't you, good girl.»

«Yeah. Yeah, lots.» Alex reached for Alura, caught her wrist and tugged. She raised her head, a sloppy, dazed grin and a shimmer on her nose and chin. «You can get on me too, take a ride on the Alex express.»

Astra laughed, and glanced up, their eyes meeting, this time gently.

Alura laughed too. «I'm not--»

«Let her touch you,» Astra said. «After you've slid this far, there's no virtue in self denial.»

There was just a hint of challenge there. Just enough to make her have to accept. She shuffled up Alex's body, over her belly. Alex's hands caught the hem of her shirt and she leaned forward to allow her to strip it off.

«Mhmm» Alex tangled her arms around her neck and pulled herself up to plant sticky kisses on her bare collarbone. Alura wrapped her up, suddenly aware of how under the red lights her flimsy human body felt hard-muscled and strong. Alex's hands slid down her back, under the waistband of the thin trousers, squeezing. Alura hissed and rocked into her stomach.

She felt hands on her hips, coming from behind, steadying her, as Alex shifted around and threw an arm back over her shoulder, lifting her head up, seeking her mouth. Scenting it, Alura hesitated, but Alex tugged at her hair and Alura kissed her, licking her way between her lips, seeking out the salt and musk, seeking how it combined with the gentle flavor of Alex's mouth. Astra's grip went hard on her hips. A soft curse. « _Shit_.»

Alex's other hand snuck down the front of her pants, sliding over her, curling up into the heart of the heat and wetness. A strange sensation, to be so touched, but the sureness of it was a comfort.

Alex kept kissing her, steady and smiling, as her hand rocked between them. Astra still held her hips, her warm presence a shadow against her back. And then no longer a shadow. She shifted in, tucking their hips together, sliding her arm down between them to reach for Alex, to give her pleasure while Alura took it from her.

Alex's hand grew more eager, her kisses harder. Trapped underneath both of them, her hips lurched but she was unable to alter anything about her position. She held Alura face in her free hand, kissing her deeply and messily, still tasting of Astra. Alura canted her hips up, letting Alex slide between her lips, parting them, making swirls in the pooling wet heat. She could feel Alex's hips juddering as Astra got her off, a little at a time, but it did not break her focus, the careful touches, the deepening penetration. It quickened, roughened. Alura let her head fall back, knocking against Astra's, let Alex, lithe and strong move against her, fucking her, like a human, like an alien, like everything strange and outside and impossible--

And then there, a peak, doubling back on itself like the crest of a wave against a rock, and she heard the cry, not believing that it was her own voice, her own body that had released it, gasping without knowing she was gasping, held close and firm between her human and her sister, and this-- it was all there was, all she felt could ever be.

#


	12. Armistice

Alura panted, weak and spent, laid out, half curled into Alex's body. Astra slid up against her other side, nosing into Alex's sweaty neck, the hair that clung to her skin. Alex grinned against her cheek, hips offering an occasional bump against Astra's. The sticky creature was still ready to go.

Astra bit at her throat, finding the resistance enough to bite down as hard as she pleased, and heard Alex keen. She slid back into her slowly, throwing a leg over her to pin her so she could work her as slow as she wanted. Alex made sad, protesting noises at the slow fucking, so Astra bit her again. All of Alex's muscles relaxed and all Astra heard was soft whimpering. She felt the shift in the spring of the bed as Alura moved closer, snuggling into Alex's back. Her hand slid against Astra's arm-- _her body, riding Alex's hand, rubbing against her as she moved, her back, bare skin crossed by a single band, her ass, driving against Astra's hips--_ the memory of the way Alura had felt against her as she came, the gasp of surprise, the cry, all washed over her.

High and mighty Alura, not anymore.

Alex squirmed between them, some touch Astra couldn't see distracting her from the slow pistoning of her fingers. A touch on her hand where it was buried knuckle deep in Alex startled her. Alura. Alura squeezed her hand for a moment, and then tucked her fingers inside Astra's curled palm slicking themselves in the arousal that had gathered there. Astra drew her fingers out, and Alura wet her hand in the slick released. She pressed the back of hand against Astra's, knuckle to knuckle, and four fingertips found Alex's entrance.

Alex choked. She was never very verbal, but she tensed, babbling in English, a lapse which she never did either, "Wait-- wait, no I-- oh my God. Oh my--"

«Be good for us,» Alura murmured against her neck.

«Relax,» Astra added. «Open up.»

And they pushed in.

Alex sobbed.

They fucked her. It was easy enough to keep the pace, harder to keep the pressure between their hands, both pulling in opposite ways, and Alex thrashed and gasped and begged. She spread for them, finding places to put her feet to arch up, hips tilted to the side, legs open. One hand fisting Astra's hair, the other groping at Alura's breastband, she took the fucking, English and Kryptonian swearing and prayers spilling from her lips.

She came, collapsing between them, aftershocks making her shudder against the fingers still inside her.

«I think she can take another.» Alura murmured, and Alex let out a little cry of protest. Ignoring it, Astra nestled the back of her hand more securely against Alura's, then reached down and scooped under Alex's thigh, tugging her leg up and drawing it back. Alex's weight slid more on top of her, and she felt Alura adjust to press more firmly against Alex's back.

Without even a look between them, they began again, slowly working her up. Astra's thumb rubbed loose sweeps over her clit, and she could hear the sounds and feel the twitches as Alura pressed lower. Alex's body, tensed against the expectation of pain, did not expect the slow drag out, the diffused touch. And when they thrust in again, she opened for them, going soft, and pushing into the touch. Relentlessly, they fucked into her until she was swearing and crying. «That hurts, it hurts. Don't stop. Please. Please. It hurts. Don't _stop_.»

She came again, buckling and weeping, and they let her slide into the warm space between them. Alura shifted a little away, so Alex could lie on her back, her knees staying spread as if even the thought of closing them hurt. Astra pressed soft kisses to her cheek and her ear, and Alura traced circles around her bellybutton, dipping in and tugging at it every few revolutions, and Alex cried silently.

Astra murmured to her, telling her how good she was, how beautiful she was when she came for them, and Alex, still crying, squeezed her hand, signaling that she was okay. Alura was the first to rise, and disappeared into the adjoined bathroom.

When she emerged, she had stripped off her remaining clothing and carried a wet washcloth. Astra pulled in a quick breath through her nose. Her sister's body, unlike hers, was smooth, unscarred, her breasts a little heavier from feeding Kara. The soft red lights glowed off her skin, scattering in shimmers like it did against silk.

She moved to the bed, climbing over Alex to reach her face, and shushed her, then scrubbed away at it with the washcloth, cleaning off the sweat and tears and cum and spit. Alex's breath caught, and then she sighed, her whole body relaxing into the scrub.

«There you go. Does that feel all right?»

Alex made a happy sound.

Alura worked the washcloth down her body, across her chest and between her legs. She moved gently there, chivvying Alex's legs apart and cleaning her carefully. Alex bit her lip, arching a little, in a sensitive way. Astra stroked the rims of her ears until she relaxed.

«Over.»

Alura rolled Alex onto her front and delved down again between her legs. Cleaning the cleft between her ass and thighs, then sliding up over her perineum and in. Alex made a helpless little squeak.

«Is this all right?» Alura rocked her hand back and forth, and Alex gave a soft whimper slumping bonelessly onto the bed. Astra reached out, letting her fingers twine through Alex's hair.

Alura rolled her fingers in and out, pushing the washcloth deep and dragging it just a little forward each time. Alex buried her face in the blankets, kept her knees spread, and rocked her hips lightly.

«I thought we weren't going to kill her.»

Alura grinned. Why had Astra ever thought her sister wasn't wicked? «She'll let us know when she's had enough.»

«She's being so good, isn't she?» Astra petted Alex's head. «We're going to keep her?»

Alura circled her fingers. «Oh yes. This one is ours.»

Alex squirmed against the blankets and lifted her head. « _Please_.»

#

The washcloth landed with a damp splat on the floor. Alex flailed as she found herself being dragged to the edge of the bed, turned back over, and her legs dumped over the edge. Astra put herself between them. And Alura, all smooth naked skin, slid in behind her, hoisting her up, just enough, so her hand could slip between them and her fingers press into the place where the rough, cool washcloth had been before.

Alex yelped. The washcloth had been nice, distant, and left a low burn in her stomach, while between her legs was aching and over-sensitized. She was wet again, but she wasn't totally sure about--

Her legs were hiked up, settled onto Astra's shoulders. Off balance, held up enough so she couldn't get any leverage to fight, a long finger worked its way into her back entrance, and a hot tongue slid in from the front, and Alex, helpless, clutched anything she could reach for balance and enjoyed it.

#

«Just-- five minutes, please.» Alex buried her face into the comforter and gave out.

Alura, returning from the bathroom, stretched out beside her, twining her fingers in the short hairs on the back of her neck, enjoying the feel of them. Astra shifted up Alex's body, dropping a kiss on the scar on her side. She lay on her front and Alex curled into her shoulder. Alura let her eyes linger on their bare forms, on the way the red lights cast soft shadows into the hollows and made their skin seem to glow. She reached out across Alex, and touched her sister, letting her fingers trail down the hollow of Astra's spine into the warm and slightly damp dip on her lower back.

Astra's eyes met hers, lazy and amused.

«You actually like this, don't you?»

«It seems I do.» Alura did not look away. No feeling of embarrassment rose in her. «You're beautiful.»

«Narcissist.»

Alura let her hand twitch across Astra's soft side, and Astra flinched back, abdominal muscles standing out in tension.

«Hey! Not there! You know that!» Astra scuttled away on her elbows and gave a brief glance at Alex. «Old war wound.»

«Oh please, you've been ticklish there since you were a child. Admit it.»

Alex kept her face planted in the blankets and groaned.

 _«_ _Never_.» Astra climbed over the barrier of Alex's body and lunged with clawed fingers. Alura grabbed one wrist, her other hand reaching for her leg. Focus crossed Astra's face as it seemed she tried to fly, found she couldn't, and toppled on top of her sister.

Legs tangled, skin on skin, one arm trapped between them, Alura found her breath catching in her throat. Astra was staring at her, pupils dilated, hair half in her mouth and sticking to her skin.

Alura extracted her arms and reached up, tucking the hair behind her ear, smoothing her palm over Astra's cheek.

«Make out,» Alex muttered, her eyes slitted, a quirk of amusement in the corner of her mouth.

Astra laughed, and her body flexed, as if to move. Alura held her head, not letting her draw away. She lifted herself, Astra's hand suddenly immobile against her tensed stomach, and pressed a kiss to her cheekbone, then one to the other. Astra's eyes shut, and the next were placed gently on her eyelids. When Astra's eyes blinked open afterward, they were wet.

«Even when I judged you, you were never anything but loved.»

«Alex has just corrupted you thoroughly.» But her voice cracked as she said it.

Astra nipped at the tip of her nose and dragged her hands up her sides. «You'd have been running for the hills if even Zor grabbed you like this a year ago.» Her hands cupped Alura's breasts. Alex's eyes were open now, wide, intense.

«You just don't like having competition.» Alura let her hands trail over Astra's back again, and then down, resting on the firm flesh of her ass. A small shudder in her hips, quickly controlled, and a line of restraint on her face was the only forfeit.

«Big sister doesn't always win.»

«Ask Alex how many times I got her off my first attempt.»

«You are actually the worst.»

«Please,» Alex whined, «make out or kiss me, but don't just bicker while you're naked.»

Astra reached out and caught Alex around the ribcage, drawing her back in between them. Alura helped, squashing her like a sandwich, and biting at her ear. Alex squirmed happily, nuzzling into her throat and shoulder, and with a bump, she'd flattened out between them, and Alura caught Astra's eyes over her shoulder, and lifted up, tugging her down for a light press of lips.

They would have never kissed like this before, but before other things had been important, pride and appearances and righteousness. But now they were both here, both alive and Alex held in common as something to treasure, why not take these human intimacies as their own?

Alex startled at the sound, lifting her head and opening her mouth in a sound of protest. «Wait. I want to see--»

They turned to her, as one, and rocked sweetly into her.

«But we're not done with you yet.»

#

Under the red light of the Rao lamps, Alex stretched out naked, sated, and exhausted. Astra knelt just behind her head, tracing fingerlines across her chin and around her ears, leaning down to press inverted kisses to her collarbone and throat and lips. Alura was settled in between her thighs on her stomach, nosing absently against her abdomen and softly petting the skin of her hips.

«Tell us what you want,» Alura murmured. «Do you want anything more?»

Alex's head lolled back. «Oh God, no. I'm . . .» She trailed off and gave a soft sound and a twitch as Astra's teeth scraped her collarbone. «Can you guys kiss each other again?»

A stillness settled into the room.

«You're both just so pretty. I want to watch you kiss.»

Astra's eyes were on Alura, steady, pupils dilated. She licked her lips. Alura took a slow breath. «We can do that for you, darling.»

Alex flapped her arms weakly. «I want to touch.»

Astra chuckled. "Oh, we'll do you one better." She stretched out, gathering Alex's naked form into her arms, and then twitched her fingers, calling Alura over. Alura gently helped collect Alex's legs. She moved up against the tangle of people she loved and settled against them, looping one arm around Astra's neck, and lacing the other behind Alex's back.

With Alex between them, her face only inches away, Alura leaned in, meeting Astra halfway, and gently let their lips press together. It was strangely not strange, half alien, in this sexual context, and half familiar, her sister, whom she had always loved. Lips parted, in the human manner, slow and wet and gentle. The catch of Alex's breath, Astra opening into it, her tongue rubbing over Alura's, the drag of teeth against her lower lip. Decadent and easy and artful, human and Kryptonian, a coming together of all the things they thought they'd lost.

Alex made a small keening sound and then went limp between them.

«She isn't dead, is she?» Astra muttered.

«Just fainted, I think.» The beat of her heart vibrated through their skin.

Astra's low chuckle added to the vibrations, and slowly they untangled themselves, stretching Alex out between them. Alura rested her head on the young woman's shoulder, and Astra snuggled up against her other side.

The bed was big enough. They all slept.

###


End file.
